prominent trial underway jury selection
begins today for a celebrity attorney
Michael avenatti who faces charges of
extortion after allegedly attempting to
blackmail Nike out of more than 20
million dollars avenatti being held at
the Metropolitan Correctional Center and
was denied bail before the start of the
trial let's bring in Judge Andrew
Napolitano Fox News's senior judicial
analyst for the details judge your
thoughts on how this shakes out and what
the potential consequences here you know
lawyers are permitted to write to
adversaries and say my client has a
claim against you and X dollars will
make the claim go away that's what
lawyers do that's a more efficient way
to resolve a dispute than filing a
lawsuit and litigating it but when the
demand is so disproportionate to any
ability to show damages then then the
government gets involved because then it
appears to be extortion rather than the
settlement of a legitimate claim so in
this case avenatti claimed he was
representing a high school basketball
coach whose players and students had
received improper gifts from Nike and
that somehow that was worth 25 million
dollars not to sue unfortunately for mr.
avenatti Nike went to the feds
immediately and there are rather lurid
tape recordings which many of us heard
when this news broke about a year ago of
him yelling and screaming and ranting
and raving and demanding their 25
million it's going to be very difficult
for him to defend against that now the
reason he's in jail is a bit of a
mystery he was in the middle of a
hearing to remove his license to
practice law in Los Angeles when they
took a bathroom break he was arrested in
the bathroom by IRS agents who had a
warrant from the federal judge and that
warrant and the documents supporting the
warrant were sealed and still are sealed
but somehow he ended up the next day in
Manhattan in the same jail that held El
Chapo and Jeffrey Epstein and is being
transported from there on a daily basis
to his trial judge while I have you here
I want to switch gears for a second
let's talk about this Bezos Bosch
billionaire Jeff Bezos hosting a
high-end party in his lavish Washington
DC
guests like Ivanka Trump Bill Gates
senator Mitt Romney this is all amid
investigations of the savvy cellphone
hacking as well as reports at the
National Enquirer obtained information
from the brother of bezos's girlfriend
Lauren Sanchez about his extramarital
affair so when you look at this you know
you could say it was sort of a stretch
here that the Saudis got involved in
this no Lauren Sanchez just sent the
text to her brother so we have two
different versions the version that The
Wall Street Journal reported which it
says it got from federal authorities is
that in fact the Saudi prince was not
involved the Jeff Bezos girlfriend gave
these embarrassing photos to her brother
who sold them to the National Enquirer
so far no crime we also have the United
Nations which says it has investigated
this and it has looked at the at the
iPhones and the the hacking of Jeff
Bezos this iPhone was done by an iPhone
associated with the Saudi prince now I
don't know where this is going to go the
giving it to the brother who get was
sold it to the the American media the
National Enquirer is not not a crime and
of no interest to the FBI but a foreign
national or a foreign intelligence
service hacking the iPhone of an
American citizen is very much of
interest to the FBI we'll see where it
goes yeah difficult to get to the bottom
of that one judge for sure you know as
you said it's not a crime to give your
brother those photos I think a lot of
the world watching this particular
situation thought she would just who
would do that
right right know her brother listen I
don't know the guy he's a character by
the way he says The Wall Street Journal
has it wrong and he said that in very
colorful language and they printed in
their article what he told them by email
a day or two ago so I don't know where
this is going to go I'll tell you this
it's unusual for the FBI to release
preliminary results of an investigation
before the investigation is not done but
somehow that preliminary information
made its way into the Wall Street
Journal on the front page
judge great to see you thank you
pleasure Jackie