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LOS ANGELES – Attorney Michael Avenatti was arrested by Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents Tuesday evening during a break in a disciplinary hearing in Los Angeles over allegations that the high-profile lawyer scammed a client out of $840,000. The arrest occurred around 6 p.m. outside the State Bar Court, where the State Bar of California has initiated proceedings against him. * * * Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles, told Fox News that Avenatti was arrested on suspicion of violating his pre-trial release. * * * Avenatti was supposed to travel to New York...

For years, Maya Rockeymoore Cummings ran a charity so closely intertwined with her for-profit consulting firm that they shared the same employees, the same office space and the same director - her. The private firm carried out the charity's mission of promoting public health and addressing racial and economic inequity under a cost-sharing agreement that gave the firm a 5 percent management fee. Rockeymoore Cummings signed a contract on behalf of both parties to set up the unusual relationship. She disclosed the arrangement to the Internal Revenue Service initially, but in subsequent years she checked "no" on 990 tax forms...

Joe Biden once again took the germ of a good idea — and botched it by reductioing his own absurdum. ABC News correspondent Linsey Davis challenged Biden on his criminal justice reform plans to release inmates convicted of drug use, referring to criticisms from Cory Booker that Biden’s plan won’t go far enough. Oh yeah, Biden seemed to say? He began expanding his vision of reform until it reached the stage where “nobody should be in jail for a nonviolent crime.”

(Reuters) - Michael Avenatti, the lawyer who represented porn star Stormy Daniels in lawsuits against U.S. President Donald Trump, has been sued by a paraplegic client who accused him of siphoning away a $4 million settlement he had won. Geoffrey Johnson is seeking at least $9.5 million of compensatory damages, plus punitive damages, from Avenatti and several other defendants in his complaint filed with the Orange County Superior Court in California. His law firm is expected to discuss the case at a press conference on Thursday.

Former President Barack Obama spoke at a Boeing leadership meeting in January after the aerospace giant Opens a New Window. donated $10 million to the Obama Presidential Center, a company spokesman confirmed. Obama discussed U.S. economic development and his new foundation, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the news. Boeing – the top U.S. exporter and one of the largest U.S. defense contractors – also donated $10 million to the George W. Bush Presidential Center.

Embattled attorney Michael Avenatti will have a busy day in Manhattan federal court Tuesday -- but as a defendant, not as counsel. Avenatti, 49, is scheduled to be arraigned on charges that he tried to extort up to $25 million from athletic apparel giant Nike by threatening to expose claims that the shoemaker paid off high school basketball players to steer them to Nike-sponsored colleges. He also is scheduled to be arraigned on charges that he stole nearly $300,000 from adult film actress Stormy Daniels, the client who rocketed him to national prominence. In the Nike case, Avenatti is charged...

“They killed him,” Marvin Siegel’s daughter Lisa Siegel Belanger wrote in a text. She followed up to explain that six years of round-the-clock captivity in his own home and in various medical facilities, together with forced drugging and morphine, lack of proper care and the ability for his family to interact with him and help with decisions, accelerated her father’s death. As we previously reported in this paper through a multi-part series of articles, including a personal account by Lisa, six years ago her father was taken from his Boxford, Mass. home via ambulance at the direction of a visiting...

Lightning-rod lawyer Michael Avenatti is accused of embezzling nearly $2 million that he was supposed to give to a client to settle her suit against NBA-player ex Hassan Whiteside, blowing the funds on a private jet, a report said Sunday. The Miami Heat hoopster had wired $2.75 million to Avenatti in January 2017, intending it to cover the bulk of his $3 million settlement with former flame Alexis Gardner, who was repped by Avenatti, The Los Angeles Times reported, citing court filings. Avenatti was entitled to keep a roughly $1 million cut to cover his legal fees but instead allegedly...

Nigeria's Chief Justice Walter Onnoghen has been convicted of falsely declaring his assets after failing to reveal the money he held in foreign bank accounts.

NEW YORK – Sears Holdings Corp sued longtime former chairman Eddie Lampert, his hedge fund ESL Investments and others like Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, claiming they illegally siphoned billions of dollars of assets from the retailer before it went bankrupt. The lawsuit, made public on Thursday, was filed by the restructuring team winding down Sears’ bankruptcy estate and suing on behalf of creditors, many of whom blame Lampert for the retailer’s downfall. It followed the billionaire’s $5.2 billion purchase in February of most Sears assets, including the DieHard and Kenmore brands, after a bankruptcy auction. The complaint seeks the repayment...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Attorney Michael Avenatti has been charged in a 36-count federal indictment alleging he stole millions of dollars from clients, did not pay his taxes, committed bank fraud and lied in bankruptcy proceedings. Avenatti, 48, was indicted late Wednesday by a Southern California grand jury on a raft of additional charges following his arrest last month in New York on two related counts and for allegedly trying to shake down Nike for up to $25 million. The attorney best known for representing porn actress Stormy Daniels in lawsuits against President Trump said Thursday on Twitter that he...

BUFFALO, New York, March 25, 2019, LifeSiteNews — Despite being under fire for multiple alleged coverups of clergy sex abuse, the Diocese of Buffalo has returned a priest with penchant for male pornography to service. Bishop Richard J. Malone reinstated Fr. Robert A. Stolinski, saying “allegations of child sexual abuse” against the priest “have not been substantiated.” While the Bishop’s statement noted that the decision is based on recent reports of investigators as well as the advice and recommendations of the independent Diocesan Review Board, the fact remains that Stolinski has a long, troubling history of indulging in male pornography,...

New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez interceded on behalf of an Ecuadorian woman who was banned from traveling to the U.S. because of allegations she had engaged in visa fraud. The woman, Estafania Isaias, is the daughter of a fugitive from Ecuador convicted in absentia for bank fraud and whose relatives in Florida made significant campaign donations to the New Jersey Democrat's 2012 campaign and the Democratic Party. Current and former U.S. government officials tell NBC 4 New York that Estefania Isaias was barred from traveling to the U.S. in 2007 because she allegedly lied on visa applications to bring immigrant...

Another scandal for the "scandal-free" Obama administration. Not all ICE targets work construction or smuggle drugs. Some are key figures in the Dem machine. But the era of Obama corruption is over. There's a new sheriff in town. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) this week arrested two millionaire fugitives from Ecuador whose family donated heavily to American political campaigns. Roberto and William Isaías, 74 and 75, were detained Wednesday in Miami and taken to a detention facility for undocumented immigrants awaiting deportation, The New York Times reported Friday. ICE told the Times that the brothers were “unlawfully present” in...

UPPER ST. CLAIR, Pa. (KDKA) – Westminster Presbyterian Church in Upper St. Clair is one of the largest Presbyterian churches in southwestern Pennsylvania with over 1700 members. One of those long-time members, David Reiter, was also the church administrator for 17 years. It turns out, police say, that he was also a big time thief, stealing more than $1.2 million from the church between 2001 and 2018 In a lengthy complaint, the Allegheny County District Attorney’s office has charged Reiter with 10 counts, including forgery, criminal conspiracy, and theft. The complaint alleges that Reider stole over $979,000 through an electronic...

President Trump carried Pennsylvania in 2016 in a major surprise and Democrats plans to reclaim the state as their own is key to unseating Trump in 2020. Wednesday’s announcement that Philadelphia labor kingpin John “Johnny Doc” Dougherty, along with 6 cronies, on a 116-count indictment that includes embezzlement, bribery and theft, threatens the hopes of national Democrats to reclaim control over Pennsylvania’s electoral votes in 2020. Uncategorized Democrats Rocked by 116-Count Indictment of Major Democratic Players In Pennsylvania By HJIC Published on February 2, 2019 Opinion| President Trump carried Pennsylvania in 2016 in a major surprise and Democrats plans to...

The GoFundMe campaign that generated $20 million in private donations is being shutdown and those who donated are being refunded their money unless they decide to donate it to a newly-established 501(c)4. Brian Kolfage, the veteran who started the campaign, on Friday posted the following message on the campaign's website: Eight days before Christmas I started this GoFundMe campaign because I was tired of watching the U.S. government’s inability to secure our southern border. Like most Americans, I see the porous southern border as a national security threat and I refuse to allow our broken political system to leave my family...

Mayor Bill de Blasio on Friday took the extraordinary step of firing his embattled investigations commissioner, Mark G. Peters, the culmination of a fierce rivalry between the two powerful men. It was a rare and consequential action by a mayor to remove an investigations commissioner: The position is understood to come with a large degree of independence that allows impartial scrutiny of all areas of government, including the executive branch.

Burnishing his progressive credentials, Mayor Bill de Blasio portrayed himself as a protector of the working class on Thursday — while proposing a redistribution of wealth — in his sixth State of the City address. “Brothers and sisters, there’s plenty of money in the world. There's plenty of money in this city. It's just in the wrong hands,” said deBlasio, who owns two homes and collects $258,750 a year as mayor.

Bill de Blasio has made a career of sticking his paw in New Yorkers’ pockets. Now he’s planning another national tour, and he’s digging deeper than ever. Love him or hate him, you have to admit that Kaiser Wilhelm is the luckiest sonfabeech in American politics. Hectoring “millionaires” all the way, he parlayed a seat on New York’s do-nothing City Council into a term as the city’s pointless public advocate, which he then rode into Gracie Mansion — arriving just when federal monetary policy was giving Gotham a cash bath to end all cash baths. Bill came, he saw, he...