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In comparison, bank fraud and wire fraud charges from federal prosecutors in California are much drier, relying on bank statements and financial documents.
But this drought also means that cases of fraud will probably be easier to prosecute – and therefore more dangerous for Avenatti's precarious legal hopes.
"As a rule of thumb, the more you can rely on financial documents to prove your case, the better, because there will not really be any credibility problems," said Elie Honig, a senior legal analyst at CNN.
"It's a lot more black-and-white when dealing with documents than when dealing with witnesses and interpretations of human motivations and things like that."
Federal prosecutors in New York and Los Angeles on Monday accused Mr. Avenatti in two separate criminal cases. The high-ranking lawyer, known for representing the adult movie star Stormy Daniels in his lawsuit against President Trump, was arrested in New York and released on bail of $ 300,000.
He says that he is innocent of the charges.
"I am confident that when all the evidence is revealed in these cases, when everyone knows, when due process is respected, that I will be fully exonerated and justice will be done," said Mr. Avenatti on Monday in court.
The accusations of fraud in Los Angeles
The 197-page criminal complaint in Los Angeles accuses Avenatti of defrauding a client and defrauding a bank by providing false tax returns.
US attorney Nick Hanna said the charges "paint a hideous picture of lawless conduct and greed," calling Avenatti "a corrupt lawyer fighting for his own selfish interests."
Hanna said the old charge was based on the role played by Avenatti in an intellectual property case, which had resulted in a $ 1.6 million payment that was to be paid to Avenatti's client in January. 2018.
But instead of paying the client, Avenatti lied and said the client would receive the payment in March 2018, and then used the money to pay for his own coffee business and personal expenses, prosecutors said. Hanna stated that the client still had not received most of his money.
In addition, prosecutors said that Avenatti had provided the client with US $ 130,000 of this payment and had announced that it could lend him US $ 100,000 in January 2019 to enable him to meet his obligations. financial.
"So, it seems that Avenatti was proposing to lend some money (from the client) to (the client)," says the complaint.
According to the complaint, bank fraud was mainly based on financial transactions with a bank in Mississippi.
In 2014, Avenatti received three separate loans from the bank totaling more than $ 4 million after disclosing to the bank what he described as his personal income tax returns for 2011, 2012 and 2013. He also told the bank that he had paid $ 1.6 million in taxes in 2012 and an additional $ 1.25 million in 2013, says the complaint.
However, Avenatti has not actually filed tax returns with the IRS for these years, according to prosecutors. He also made no tax payments in 2012 and 2013 and, instead, owed more than $ 850,000 in unpaid personal income taxes, interest and penalties from previous years, says the complaint.
Overall, the complaint looks like a case of fraud, false tax returns and misrepresentations to a bank, said CNN analyst Jeffrey Toobin.
Honig described this case as an "ordinary case" that can be handled by inexperienced first- or second-year prosecutors.
"You prove that Avenatti has inflated its own holdings and deflated its debts to secure bank loans worth millions of dollars that it would otherwise not have obtained." is a case of simple banking fraud, "he said.
"There is no obvious defense against that," he added.
The charges of extortion in New York
The case is "not a slam dunk," said Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor, on Monday.
According to the complaint, Avenatti met with Nike 's lawyers on March 19 and threatened to disclose what he alleged to be an allegation of misconduct on the part of employees on the eve of the lawsuit. call its quarterly results and the start of the NCAA tournament.
Avenatti has threatened to disclose the allegations at a press conference, according to the complaint, unless Nike does pay him payments, as well as an unidentified co-conspirator, by hiring them to lead a ". internal investigation ", for which he then claimed between $ 15 and $ 25 million. Avenatti also reportedly demanded that Nike pay $ 1.5 million to a person he claimed to represent.
Nike's outside lawyer has contacted federal prosecutors about the threats, the complaint says. One of the lawyers, acting under the direction of the security forces, then organized a call and a meeting with Avenatti, which were recorded and monitored by the investigators.
"And I do not continue to play games," he said. "You know enough now to know that you have a serious problem, and it's better for me to be exposed to blowing up."
"I'm going to withdraw $ 10 billion from your client's market capitalization … I did not get fooled," Avenatti told Nike's attorneys, according to the complaint.
Geoffrey Berman, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, told reporters that Avenatti's actions amounted to an "old-fashioned shakedown."
"There is a very difficult legal boundary between aggressive negotiation to get a settlement and extortion," said Mariotti, the former prosecutor. "There is really a defense out there … The other case we just heard about in California? Not so much."
Honig, who sued the crowd extortion case as a prosecutor, also said he was at least arguable for Avenatti.
"He has serious problems in both cases, I just think I can see what his defense will be in the New York case," Honig said.
CNN's Stella Chan, Erica Orden, Kara Scannell and Eli Watkins contributed to this report.
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