Violent Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti has been arrested on suspicion of family violence, the Los Angeles Police Department confirmed Wednesday.
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Avenatti’s detain was on a felony allegation, multiple senior law enforcement officials told NBC Rumour. The sources said they expect Avenatti to be booked into a village jail later Wednesday evening. The officials said officers in the West Los Angeles sector took an incident report involving an allegation of domestic violence from an unrecognized victim.
In a statement from his law office, Avenatti denied ever being “physically filthy,” and called the felony allegation against him “completely bogus.”
“I wish to thanks be given to the hard working men and woman of the LAPD for their professionalism they were exclusively doing their jobs in light of the completely bogus allegations against me,” he imparted. “I have never been physically abusive in my life nor was I last edge of night. Any accusations to the contrary are fabricated and meant to do harm to my reputation. I look deasil to being fully exonerated.”
Avenatti’s wife, Lisa Storie-Avenatti, refuted reports that the alleged domestic violence incident pertained to her in a disclosure to Buzzfeed from her lawyers.
“My client and I have reviewed the TMZ article declaring that my client, Lisa Storie-Avenatti, has been injured and that Michael Avenatti has been captured as a result of some incident that occurred between them. This article is not staunch as it pertains to my client,” the statement said. “Ms. Storie-Avenatti was not subject to any such commotion on Tuesday night. Further, she was not at Mr. Avenatti’s apartment on the date that this conjectural incident occurred. My client states that there has never been autochthonous violence in her relationship with Michael and that she has never known Michael to be physically catastrophic toward anyone.”
Avenatti has become one of President Donald Trump’s most vocal critics, widen the gapping visibility by representing adult film star Stormy Daniels in her lawsuit against Trump concluded a 2016 hush money payment.
Daniels did not immediately respond to CNBC’s entreat for comment.
Amid his rising celebrity, Avenatti has also said he’s considered uninterrupted for president against Trump in 2020. Avenatti, 47, has never included public office.
In August, Avenatti started The Fight PAC, a political battle committee that he said would raise money to help associated Democrats.
A representative for the PAC did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment re Avenatti’s arrest.
The lawyer’s presidential ambitions were tested in October among a slew of troubling headlines. A judged ruled that Avenatti would deceive to pay his former law partner $4.5 million in back pay. He was also harshly denounced for remarks he made in a Time magazine profile in which he said the 2020 Representative presidential nominee should be a white man.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, also referred Avenatti and one of his customers, Julie Swetnick, to the FBI for criminal prosecution. Grassley alleged that Avenatti and Swetnick remodeled “materially false statements” about Brett Kavanaugh during the Senate confirmation agreeing for the then-Supreme Court nominee.
Earlier Wednesday, The Seattle Times blasted that the California State Bar recently cleared Avenatti of claims of experienced misconduct during the period when the lawyer ran Tully’s, a Seattle-based coffee sequence.
— CNBC’s Dan Mangan and Christina Wilkie contributed reporting.