• Home
  • News
  • Business
  • Lawyer Michael Avenatti tweets documents allegedly showing Nike paid top college athletes

Lawyer Michael Avenatti tweets documents allegedly showing Nike paid top college athletes

By Marjorie van Elven

loading...

Scroll down to read more

Attorney Michael Avenatti, of Stormy Daniels vs. Donald Trump fame, decided to defend himself two weeks after being accused by federal prosecutors of trying to extort 20 million US dollars from Nike.

According to Reuters reports, Avenatti approached Nike attorneys in March saying one of his clients had evidence that the sportswear company had bribed top high school basketball players to play for Nike-sponsored college teams. He asked for 22.5 million US dollars for himself and 1.5 million US dollars for his client in exchange for not showing the documents to the press.

After being released on a 300,000 dollar-bail on the condition that he surrender his US and Italian passports, the attorney has published said evidence on Twitter this weekend.

The sportswear company responded with the following statement, sent to US-based publication Footwear News: “Nike will not respond to the allegations of an individual facing federal charges of fraud and extortion and aid in his disgraceful attempts to distract from the athletes on the court at the height of the tournament. Nike will continue its cooperation with the government’s investigation into grassroots basketball and the related extortion case”.

Michael Avenatti
Nike