A U.S. District Court judge found that federal prosecutors had withheld financial data from Mr. Avenatti, the former lawyer for the pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels. He faces a retrial.
A federal judge in Southern California declared a mistrial on Tuesday in a fraud case against Michael Avenatti, giving the brash former lawyer for Stormy Daniels a rare victory as he fights his conviction and sentence in another criminal case and awaits trial in a third. The judge, James V. Selna of the U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, Calif., found that federal prosecutors had withheld from Mr. Avenatti’s defense team financial data that they had collected as part of their case accusing him of stealing millions of dollars from five clients and lying repeatedly about his business and income. Mr. Avenatti had contended that the accounting and tax preparation data from his law firm’s servers was exculpatory evidence that could clear him of the charges. He asked Judge Selna in an Aug.15 motion to dismiss the charges or grant him a new trial. The judge set a tentative new trial date for Oct.12. “I think today is, obviously, a good day for me personally, but it is also a good day for every individual in this country who is charged with a crime and faces the power and resources of the government,” Mr. Avenatti said in a phone interview on Tuesday.
