This is what happens when you punch above your weight class or more correctly high a PR person instead of a lawyer. Michael Avenatti knows his way around a TV set but not so much the courtroom.
Stormy Daniels for her part did not want to sue Trump, in what was considered by most observers as a frivolous lawsuit, and she was not aware that she was on the hook for Avenatti’s publicity stunt.
Because, and Avenatti surely knew or he should have, if you file garbage lawsuits you may be on the hook for the other sides legal bills – this is one very successful way we work to stop these garbage cases from cluttering up the court docket.
Stormy and Avenatii lost and Trump wanted $800,000. The judge just ordered Stormy to pay the whopping amount of $293,052.33.
From The Hill: A federal judge on Tuesday ordered adult-film star Stormy Daniels to pay President Trump $293,052.33 in attorneys’ fees amid their ongoing legal battles.
U.S. District Judge James Otero ordered Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, to pay the fees in her defamation case against Trump, which Otero dismissed in October.
Daniels alleged that Trump defamed her in an April tweet that mocked her claims that a man threatened her in 2011 to keep quiet about her alleged affair with Trump.
Shortly after Daniels and her attorney, Michael Avenatti, released a forensic sketch of the man who allegedly threatened her, Trump posted a side-by-side photo suggesting that the man was Daniels’s ex-husband.
Otero, writing that Trump’s attorneys spent “excessive” time on the case, ordered Daniels to pay about 75 percent of Trump’s legal fees, plus an additional $1,000 in sanctions.
From Breitbart: An attorney for President Trump requested the court obtain $800,000 in legal fees and penalties from porn star actress Stormy Daniels for her unsuccessful defamation lawsuit against the president.
Attorney Charles Harder said his firm spent more than 500 hours and $390,000 in legal fees defending the president and asked the court to press for just as much money in sanctions to deter “frivolous defamation cases.”
“This action is virtually unprecedented in American legal history,” Harder wrote in court papers. Daniels “not only brought a meritless claim for defamation against the sitting president of the United States, but she also has engaged, along with her attorney, in massive national publicity.”
U.S. District Judge S. James Otero did not issue an immediate ruling, saying that the firm’s request for the legal fees was reasonable but that the firm went overboard on the hours spent working on the case.
