Porn lawyer Michael Avenatti might want to check a client’s background more carefully if he’s going to permit her to accuse a federal judge of gang rape.
Julie Swetnick, the woman who says she attended more than 10 parties where U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his high-school cohort gang-raped girls, has something of a checkered past herself.
Given that Avenatti’s tweets so strongly described Swetnick — before she was identified — as a “credible” witness not be fooled with, the emergence of some unsavory details about the woman’s life are somewhat surprising.
From Avenatti’s description, one would have thought Swetnick was something of a saint.
Aventti’s Promise Falls Short
After disclosing that he had a client who would accuse Judge Kavanaugh of “targeting of women with alcohol/drugs to allow a ‘train’ of men to subsequently gang rape them,” he then sallied forth with a threatening tweet: “Warning: My client re Kavanaugh has previously done work within the State Dept, U.S. Mint, & DOJ. She has been granted multiple security clearances in the past including Public Trust & Secret. The GOP and others better be very careful in trying to suggest that she is not credible.”
So his client’s past, Avenatti claimed, established the truth of her claim.
And “on her résumé,” the Washington Post reported, “Swetnick described herself this way: ‘She is a hands-on team player; having no problem stepping into new or difficult roles, situations and projects.” The Post continued:
In 2015, the state of Maryland filed an interstate lien against her property in the District. The bill included over $32,000 in unpaid taxes from 2008, and another $27,000 in interest on the seven-year-old debt. Court records reflect the full amount due of nearly $63,000 was satisfied 15 months later, in December 2016. It is not clear from court records whether the bill was paid or if the lien was released because of a decision that the bill was unwarranted.
Similarly, the IRS in 2016 assessed Swetnick a bill of over $40,000 in unpaid taxes from 2014. The federal government filed a lien on her property for the amount in 2017. The debt was listed as satisfied and the lien was released in March of this year.
But staying two steps ahead of the tax man isn’t Swetnick’s only avocation. She can be a difficult person to get along with, Politico reported: “A Miami-Dade County court docket shows a petition for injunction against Swetnick was filed March 1, 2001, by her former boyfriend, Richard Vinneccy, who told Politico Wednesday the two had dated for four years before they broke up.”
Swetnick threatened Vinnecy after they broke up, he told Politico, “even after he got married to his current wife and had a child.”
She also threatened to harm his new infant: “Right after I broke up with her, she was threatening my family, threatening my wife and threatening to do harm to my baby at that time,” Vinneccy told Politico. “I know a lot about her.”
“She’s not credible at all,” he said. “Not at all.”
Avenatti’s Tax, Debt Problems
Avenatti, whose most prominent client is a porn actress, has money troubles of his own.
A bankruptcy judge has stopped his law firm from spending legal revenues because it owes more than $10 million in unpaid debts and back taxes.
The “order covers fees from 54 court cases,” the Los Angeles Times reported, “including the suit that Daniels filed against President Trump to void the nondisclosure pact that bars her from talking about their alleged 2006 sexual encounter.” Daniels has raised $582,000 to pay her legal fees, but whether Avenatti has collected any of the money is “unclear.”
Avenatti’s firm recently came out from behind “Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March after reaching agreements to pay its creditors,” and owes the Internal Revenue Service $440,291.
As for the Daniels-Avenatti run at Trump with a defamation claim, the hearing judge suggested a few days ago he might well toss it out.
Photo: AP Images
