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0 Michael Avenatti vs Stormy Daniels | Michael Avenatti continued his cross-examination of former client Stormy Daniels on Friday. The cross-examination lasted the whole day. During Daniels cross-examination and the type of questions Avenatti was asking, it was clear that, Avenatti wanted to portray Daniels as delusional and in need of money.
Avenatti, whom is representing himself, got to cross-examine Daniels for a second day about allegations that he stole $300,000 the performer was supposed to get from a publisher for writing a tell-all book about an alleged sexual tryst with former President Donald Trump.
He asked Daniels about stories she has told on her “Spooky Babes” show website about living in a New Orleans house in 2019 that she said was haunted. Daniels said she experienced unexplainable and frightening encounters, including physical attacks from invisible assailants, she talks to a haunted doll named “Susan” whom calls her “mommy” and the ability to communicate with dead people. She has also testified that she used tarot cards and considers herself a medium.
“Sometimes I record them,” she said of the conversations with the dead.
She was asked whether she once said: “I should keep my mouth shut because me going around saying I see dead people and I hear voices can have a pretty terrible effect on these open court cases.”
“Yes, I said that,” Daniels responded.
Avenatti asked if encounters in the home that she has since moved out of included “shadow figures and unexplainable sounds and voices that prowled your home.”
“Yes,” she said.
Avenatti asked if it made her life impossible.
“Correct,” she said.
And he asked if her partner at the time questioned her sanity.
“Yes, this is all documented,” she said.
Avenatti asked Daniels about a story she once told in which she said that she had seen an image of a woman in her home sometime between April 2019 and November 2019 who was sobbing over a dead child and cutting her wrists, and that she then looked down and saw her own arm covered in blood.
He asked her if that really happened.
“Yes,” Daniels answered.
“And you don’t remember opening the drawer, taking the knife out, or cutting yourself?” Avenatti asked.
“Correct,” she said.
“And at the time you began to think that you were crazy?” he asked.
“Correct,” she answered.
Avenatti: Let me ask you about the doll Susan who calls you “Mommy, Mommy”?
Daniels: We don’t know it was her. We assume.
Avenatti: You read tarot cards?
Daniels : Yes.
Avenatti: You charge people money? Daniels: Technically they are oracle cards.
Avenatti : You believe that you’re a medium, correct?
Daniels : Correct.
He also elicited from Daniels that she was diagnosed at one point with a tumor in her head. She said the diagnosis was made by “Lisa,” who engages in holistic medicine as an energy worker and yoga instructor. The tumor, she added — which turned out to be a blockage that gave her memory loss and headaches — has since gone away.
She admitted saying publicly as recently as last April that she had had a tumor.
“That’s what they thought. Luckily I was wrong,” she added.
When Avenatti asked her whether she advertised her oracle card-reading abilities on the internet so people would visit her from “all over the country” to have their cards read and to sometimes help them communicate with dead relatives, she corrected him, saying: “All over the world, yes.”
Throughout two days on the witness stand for Daniels that ended Friday afternoon, jurors heard plenty of profanity as written communications were read aloud.
Avenatti also put forth an argument about Glen, Daniels ex-husband whom, according to Avenatti, cleaned out Daniels’ bank account before leaving her. Avenatti also emphasized on the fact that he bool Full Disclosure might have not been a bestseller like she claimed.
Avenatti: You claimed it was on the NYT bestsellers list for 360 days – and you know it was false, right? Daniels: I didn’t give a number of days.
Avenatti: Did you ever agree with the statement?
Daniels: I don’t remember.
Avenatti : How many copies of your book have been sold?
AUSA: Sustained.
Avenatti questioned Stormy Daniels about her husband. Avenatti refers to Stormy Daniels husband Glenn. He says Glenn cleaned out her bank account. He’s trying to demonstrate her need for money.
Avenatti: Let me ask about your ex husband. Didn’t you write me to drop the suit and stop giving interviews, because your husband was leaving you and taking your daughter?
AUSA: Objection. Judge Furman: Sustained.
Prosecutors were expected to finish presenting their case Monday.
Avenatti has not yet announced whether he will testify himself bur said: “Based on what Ms. Bieir has said, I definitely intend to re-call Mr. Janklow… And while I have not made a decision, I am strongly leaning toward testifying”
Judge Jesse M. Furman suggested that someone else on his defense team ask him questions he has written for himself if he testifies. Furman told jurors they may begin deliberations next week.
Avenatti is defending himself against wire fraud and aggravated identify theft charges.
He has already been sentenced to 2 ½ years in prison in an unrelated case, in which he was convicted of trying to extort up to $25 million from sportswear giant Nike by threatening to damage its reputation if it didn’t meet his demands.
Avenatti also questioned Daniels on the stand Friday over public statements she has made in which she said she hoped he would be raped in prison.
“Yes,” she acknowledged, she had said those things.
“So you said it on our podcast and you said it on Twitter,” he asked.
“Yes,” she responded.
Check our Inner City Press for full report
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