Michael Avenatti sentenced to 2.5 years in prison in Nike extortion case
08 July 2021
Lawyer Michael Avenatti, who gained notoriety for his representation of Stormy Daniels, was sentenced to 30 months in prison on Thursday for trying to extort Nike out of more than $20 million, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Why it matters: Avenatti was once considered a rising Democratic star and a potential 2020 candidate before facing extortion, fraud and tax charges.
- Avenatti became a household name in 2018 and a fixture on cable television as Daniels' lawyer and filed lawsuits against former President Donald Trump on her behalf.
State of play: Avenatti was found guilty in February 2020 of attempted extortion, honest-services fraud and the related use of interstate communications after he attempted to "extract more than $20 million in payments" from Nike by threatening to bring bad publicity to the company unless it complied with his demands.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.