Michael Avenatti? More Like Michael Ave-NAUGHTY!

Happy Valentine's Day to all the jerks we've loved before.

Michael Avenatti, you dumb son of a bitch, GO TO JAIL! Today a federal jury in Manhattan convicted the lawyer on three counts related to an attempt to extort Nike out of $20 million. And though we'll always be grateful to him for bringing to light Michael Cohen and American Media Inc.'s illegal ratfucking of the 2016 campaign, we are never, never, never getting back together with our (literally) crazy ex-boyfriend. Sorry, Blue Eyes, we're through!

It's all so pathetically petty and sordid. Avenatti found a basketball coach in California who said he knew about illegal payments to high school athletes. But instead of negotiating an advantageous settlement for his client, Avenatti waltzed in to Nike HQ and threatened to "take ten billion dollars off your client's market cap" if the company wouldn't give him $20 million to perform an internal audit. Or to not perform an audit — he didn't really give a damn as long as he got paid.

And when Nike's lawyers said, "Can you call us back tomorrow, and speak very loudly and clearly when you lay out the particulars of your threat to expose us if we don't pony up the cash?" Avenatti said, "You bet! Let me give you 24 hours so you'll have plenty of time to call the FBI and get them situated to record our conversation!" We are paraphrasing, but not by much.

No doubt the jury was impressed to hear Avenatti justify the exorbitant sum he demanded by asking the Boies Schiller attorneys if they "had ever held the balls of the client in your hand where you could take five to six billion dollars market cap off of them."

Hey remember the day the Nike indictment dropped when Avenatti also got indicted in California for allegedly stealing from his paraplegic client and scamming $4 million from a bank in Biloxi, Mississippi?

Sadly, Avenatti was unavailable to be arraigned in New York, since he was arrested this morning in California. Womp womp. But before we get to the Sunshine State, let's stop for a brief layover at The People's Bank in Biloxi, Mississippi, where Our Hero is alleged to have submitted false tax returns to secure $4.1 million in loans. Who among us hasn't doctored three years' worth of federal tax returns to get a loan, right? Oh, you haven't? Well, before you get all high and mighty, Michael Avenatti will have you know that he never did that either. Because he hadn't actually submitted any returns in the first place, so he fabricated them in their entirety. 

Such a fucking idiot, OMG!

Avenatti will be sentenced in New York in June, and he faces multiple criminal trials and civil suits in California. Brass tacks, he's going to jail for a long, long time, and everyone he ever owed money to is hosed. The ex-wife who posted his bond and appears to have abetted him in hiding money from his creditors, for which his bail was revoked last month, may also be in a wee spot of legal bother herself.

So, thanks Mikey for bringing us Stormy Daniels. Thanks for taking Michael Cohen down a peg. Thanks for showing the world how the National Enquirer conspired with Trump to steal the election. But ... nah. We're done here.

THANK U NEXT.

Now it is what? It's your OPEN THREAD.

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