The new federal case surrounding attorney, Michael Avenatti, is seemingly taking on new twists and turns nearly every other hour. Now, Jussie Smollett’s well known attorney is reportedly caught up in the drama too.
In case y’all hadn’t yet heard, Michael Avenatti -the attorney who responsible for sparking the new sex abuse criminal case against R. Kelly- has now been charged as a reported criminal as well. On Monday (March 25, 2019), the feds arrested Avenatti for trying to extort $25 million from Nike in what Nike refers to as “the government’s investigation into NCAA basketball.” In a separate federal investigation, Avenatti was also charged with committing bank and wire fraud.
Hours later, it is now being reported that Smollett’s infamous attorney, Mark Geragos, is allegedly listed as Avenatti’s co-conspirator in the Nike extortion case. Here is what The Associated Press has reported:
Via AP- A person familiar with details of the Michael Avenatti extortion investigation tells The Associated Press that celebrity attorney Mark Geragos is a co-conspirator in the case.
Prosecutors say in court papers that an unnamed attorney joined Avenatti in demanding that Nike pay millions of dollars, or risk being embarrassed by a scandal involving its sponsorship of an amateur basketball team. They described the attorney as a co-conspirator but didn’t charge him with a crime.
The person knowledgeable about the case tells the AP that co-conspirator was Geragos, a Los Angeles criminal defense lawyer.
If the AP claim is accurate, then at this point, it’s unclear why Geragos has not been officially charged in the case, nor is it clear why his name was reportedly replaced with the term, “unnamed attorney,” in the federal court filing. But he also has another problem…
