Michael Avenatti, the former California attorney who became a mainstay on left-leaning cable news networks during President Donald Trump’s first term in office, was spotted at a Los Angeles halfway house following the end of his federal prison stint earlier this month.
Avenatti — who frequently called for Trump to be prosecuted during his first term — was transferred from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles to a halfway house operated under the Bureau of Prisons’ Long Beach Residential Reentry Management Office on April 8. The move places him in community confinement while he remains in federal custody.
According to court records reviewed by the New York Post, Avenatti’s release from federal custody is scheduled for September 8, 2028. Photos obtained by the outlet showed the former attorney at the facility performing routine tasks like mopping the floors.
Avenatti is serving an effective sentence of 11 years and three months after a June 2025 resentencing in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, California. He received credit for approximately 40 months already served prior to the transfer.
How far they have fallen😂😂
Avenatti is now at a halfway house……. pic.twitter.com/C0AinDdxnY
— Spitfire (@RealSpitfire) April 17, 2026
A probation order signed by Senior U.S. District Judge James Selna requires him to pay $5,937,725.58 in restitution to victims and to participate in a mental health treatment program. Upon full release from custody in 2028, he will serve three years of supervised release.
During President Trump’s first term in office from 2017 to 2021, Avenatti was a regular presence on cable news networks. He represented adult film actress Stormy Daniels in her defamation lawsuit against Trump and appeared frequently on CNN and MSNBC to discuss the case and related matters.
Analyses from that period documented more than 100 appearances on those two networks within a two-month span in 2018 alone.
Avenatti’s criminal convictions arose from two separate federal cases. In the first, a New York jury convicted him in February 2020 of attempting to extort Nike Inc. Prosecutors alleged he threatened to hold a news conference exposing misconduct unless the company paid him $25 million.
He was ultimately sentenced in July 2021 to 30 months in prison for that offense.
In the second case, which centered in California, Avenatti pleaded guilty in June 2022 to four counts of wire fraud and one count of obstructing the collection of payroll taxes. The charges involved the theft of nearly $300,000 from Daniels’ proceeds on a book deal and millions of dollars from three other clients.
He was also accused of using stolen settlement funds to support a coffee business while failing to pay $3.2 million in payroll taxes.
In December 2022, a judge initially imposed a 14-year sentence. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated that sentence in 2024, citing errors in how the court calculated loss amounts and considered concurrent sentencing with the New York case. At resentencing in June 2025, the judge imposed 135 months, applied credit for prior time served, and set the schedule that now leads to the 2028 release date.
