Michael Avenatti, the once-prominent Democratic lawyer, has recently moved from federal prison to a community confinement facility in California, still under federal custody. According to records from the Bureau of Prisons, he is scheduled to be released on September 8, 2028.
Avenatti gained fame representing adult film star Stormy Daniels, especially during her failed defamation lawsuit against former President Donald Trump in 2018. However, his reputation turned sour, culminating in multiple fraud convictions that led to several years in prison.
Authorities confirmed that he transitioned from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles to a supervised residential program managed by the Bureau of Prisons in Long Beach. In 2022, he was found guilty of misappropriating nearly $300,000 from Daniels, resulting in a 48-month sentence while also serving a prior 30-month term for attempting to extort Nike for $25 million. Just last December, he received an additional 14-year sentence for defrauding four clients, one of whom was paraplegic.
Avenatti’s recent sentence was commuted to eight years in June 2025, thanks to credits from concurrent sentences after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned his previous 14-year term the previous year. He had lost his law license in California earlier in February 2025.
During his time as Daniels’ legal representative, Avenatti became a frequent presence on national television, featuring on CNN 121 times and MSNBC 108 times from 2018 to 2019 before his legal issues began. Interestingly, he has been quite vocal about his views on Trump. In a 2018 NPR interview, he confidently predicted that Trump “will either resign or be removed from office by impeachment,” adding, “But he’s not going to serve a second term anyway.” Yet, more recently, he seems to have softened his stance, expressing concerns about the Justice Department being used against Trump in a 2024 ruling.
Avenatti’s probation order mandates that he pay nearly $5.94 million in restitution to his victims and participate in a mental health program post-release. He will also be under supervised release for three years after his prison term ends.
