Months ago, Michael Avenatti, the abrasive TV pundit and lawyer for Stormy Daniels, was suggesting he should be President. Today, he was charged in Federal Court with two sets of crimes:

Lawyer Michael Avenatti was hit with a one-two punch of federal charges on Monday: an allegation in New York that he tried to extort Nike for up to $25 million and an accusation in California that he misappropriated a client’s settlement money.

....Minutes later, on the opposite coast, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman told reporters that Avenatti had “used legal and extortionate threats with the purpose of obtaining millions of dollars in payments for himself”—an old-fashioned shakedown.

Here is the Press Release from the SDNY. The Criminal Complaint and Affidavit is here. [More...]

Yesterday the Justice Department announced that indictments had been unsealed in the District of Colombia for two more of El Chapo's sons, Joaquin Guzman-Lopez and Ovidio Guzman-Lopez. The Indictment is here.

The Indictment was returned and ordered sealed almost a year ago, in April, 2018. In December, 2018, it was unsealed for a few days so the Government could include it in an extradition application for them. On January 25, 2019, the Government moved to permanently unseal the Indictment. The motion was granted on Feb. 14, 2019.

The charges are for conspiring to distribute large amounts of cocaine, meth and marijuana between April, 2008 and April, 2018, knowing it would be imported into the U.S.

Two other sons of El Chapo, Ivan Guzman-Salazar and Jesus Alfredo Guzman-Salazar have been under federal Indictment in the U.S. for several years. Ivan is charged in San Diego and Alfredo in Chicago. [More...]

This is a pretty remarkable interview by Vice News with an anonymous juror or alternate in the trial of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. The juror says s/he, as well as multiple other jurors, regularly violated the court's instructions not to read media accounts of the trial, including tweets and articles containing information that was purposely withheld from the jurors, and then lied to the judge when questioned about it. They also discussed El Chapo's guilt before deliberations began, took notes out from the jury room (which wasn't allowed), and considered punishment, even though they were admonished not to. I'm not sure there's a rule this group didn't break, according to the "snitch juror."

It seems to me it would take the FBI about ten minutes to figure out this juror's identity, and another half hour for a the Government to file a motion for a show cause order directing the juror to appear in court and show cause why s/he shouldn't be held in contempt. [More...]

Jussie Smollett has been charged in Chicago with a felony for allegedly falsely reporting a hate crime.

From the article, it appears the prosecutors called brothers Olabinjo and Abimbola Osundairo as witnesses before the grand jury this evening.

The men had reportedly told investigators that Mr. Smollett had coordinated a faux attack and paid them to participate in it.

Filing a false report in Illinois can be a misdemeanor or felony. The Grand Jury indicted Smollett for the felony version, which carries up to 3 years in prison.

The Government gave an all day closing argument yesterday in the trial of el Chapo. Shorter version: We're not asking you to like our 13 dirty snitches, most of whom will get visas to stay in the U.S. permanently, we're asking you to presume they are telling the truth and find El Chapo guilty.

Jeffrey Lichtman, the most bombastic of El Chapo's lawyers, is giving the defense closing. Three themes:

1. Where is Mayo, why isn't he here? While Chapo was being "hunted like an animal," El Mayo was "sitting on his ass, sunning himself, smoking a cigar."

2. Would you want to be put away based on the testimony of 14 lying, thieving snitches, some of whom are admitted murderers and all of whom are being paid for their testimony with promises of leniency for their own misdeeds?

3. It's the corruption. "He's paying everybody from the local beat cops up to the president." Mayo's sons get sweetheart deals, Mayo stays free, and the universe falls on El Chapo to take the blame. [More...]

Roger Stone has been indicted by Team Mueller. The Indictment is here. The Washington Post reports (no link due to auto-play video)

With Stone’s indictment, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has struck deep inside Trump’s inner circle, charging a long-standing friend of the president. The court filing charges Stone sought to gather information about hacked emails at the direction of an unidentified senior Trump campaign official, and then engaged in extensive efforts to keep secret the details of those efforts.

Stone's reaction: He's innocent, he'll never plead guilty or make up stories to help authorities get Donald Trump.

“There is no circumstance whatsoever under which I will bear false witness against the president nor will I make up lies to ease the pressure on myself. I look forward to being fully and completely vindicated,” Stone said. “I will not testify against the president because I would have to bear false witness.”

Who's who in the Indictment?

I've seen two versions of the "unredacted" version of the response filed by Paul Manafort's lawyers. In this version provided by the Associated Press (and opened in Adobe Acrobat) it's clear the redaction failed and whoever did the final proofread should have seen it.

In this version provided by the Daily Beast, also opened in Adobe Acrobat (on a PC), the document appears to be redacted so it might not have been apparent to whoever did the final proof-read. Once open, if you choose the select tool and highlight the blackened parts, then right click and press copy, and then paste in into Microsoft Word, the unredacted text appears. (I have no idea if a Mac works the same way as I don't use my Mac for work, only for music and videos. And I never open PDF's in a browser like Chrome or Firefox, only Adobe Acrobat DC Pro which I assume most law firms use). (It's the same in Adobe X which while outdated, I still use on some laptops and actually prefer.)

VICE presents ways to avoid the cut and paste trick, including making a scanned copy or taking a screenshot. That's problematic for some federal courts, including those in Colorado. [More...]

Russian lawyer Natalya Veselnitskaya has been indicted in New York and charged with obstruction of justice pertaining to a declaration she filed under penalty of perjury in a civil case between her clients (Prevezon Holdings and its chief officer, Denis Katsyv) and the Government. (She was not counsel of record -- she was hired to assist their U.S. counsel in the case. In doing so, she provided sworn declarations for the lawyers to file in support of various pleadings in the civil case.)

The Indictment is here. Veselnitskaya's Declaration that is the subject of the Indictment is here. In it she provides her working history and credentials. The Russian Prosecutor's report (referred to as the MlAT Response) is here. The letter from Russia to Veselnitskaya referred to in the Indictment is here. (I obtained these via PACER).

Vox does a good job of explaining the long and convoluted history of the civil case. It also states that while the Indictment doesn't relate to the infamous Trump Tower meeting Donald Trump Jr. presided over during his father's campaign, it does provide context for the meeting. [More...]

Arturo, Hector, Alfredo and Carlos Beltran-Leyva

Imprisoned cartel leader Hector Beltran-Levya has died of a heart attack at 56.

Hector Beltran-Leyva was arrested in 2014. Since 2016, he has been imprisoned at Altiplano. He faced a lot of charges in Mexico and two Indictments in the U.S. Here is the Mexican Government's official announcement.

The incident took place at about 15:07, when the chief of prison security reported Beltran Leyva had severe pain in the left chest, so immediately the federal center doctors gave him first aid under the protocols.

When he did not recover, the prison moved him to the Adolfo Lopez Mateos Hospital in Toluca where he died after receiving treatment in the emergency room. [More...]

Bill Cosby has been sentenced to 3 to 10 years in prison. He was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs.

Cosby, now 81 and legally blind, must serve 3 years before becoming eligible for parole. His lawyers had asked for house arrest due to his age, blindness and vulnerability in prison.

After hearing testimony from a psychologist today, the Judge declared him a "sexually violent predator".

The judge ruled on Cosby’s “sexually violent predator” status after a psychologist for the state testified that the entertainer appears to have a mental disorder that gives him an uncontrollable urge to have sex with women without their consent.

...Cosby faced a sentence of anywhere from probation to 10 years in prison.... Prosecutors asked for five to 10 years behind bars, saying he could still pose a threat to women.

[More...]

Bump and Update 9/15/18: I have uploaded Paul Manafort's plea agreement here. It's 1.2 MB, so give it a minute to load. Same for the Statement of Facts in support of the Plea (1.4 MB) which I've uploaded here.

****Original Post 9/14/18*****

Paul Manafort is pleading guilty this morning in D.C. to two charges in an information which will also resolve the conduct in the counts in Virginia that the jury couldn't reach a verdict on.

It's going to cost him.

Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to 8 charges today in New York.

The Information (charges against him) is here. More interesting is his plea agreement which is available here. [More...]