MICHAEL Avenatti, the lawyer for porn star Stormy Daniels in her suit against President Donald Trump, has been arrested charged with extorting $20million from Nike.

Avenatti also represented Ms Daniels, who alleges she and President Trump had a brief relationship — a claim the president virulently denies. Here's all you need to know about the American lawyer.

What is Michael Avenatti's net worth?

Avenatti is a high-powered lawyer with a long career of securing big wins for his clients, and as such, it's not terribly surprising that he'd be a multi-millionaire.

But how much he's precisely worth isn't public knowledge.

A race car driver with expensive taste and a high-end lifestyle, Avenatti has been estimated to be worth about $20million, around £15.5million.

He has won more than $1billion in judgements for clients in high profile cases, with the biggest win for Avenatti the $454million (£355million) 2017 fraud verdict against Kimberly-Clark’s company Halyard Health.

Avenatti reportedly owned a $12.6million (£10m) house in Laguna Beach, California, which he sold in 2015, according to real estate website Virtual Globetrotting.

Who is Avenatti's wife?

Mr Avenatti married Lisa Avenatti (formerly Lisa Storie) in 2011.

They have one son together, while he also has two teenage daughters from a previous marriage.

Lisa Avenatti filed for divorce in December 2017.

Since then he is not known to have remarried.

According to December 2018 court documents, Avenatti agreed to pay Lisa $80,000 in child support and gave her ownership of several expensive assets.

They reportedly included five luxury watched worth around $50,000 each and a leased 2017 Ferarri 488 GT.

Did he represent Stormy Daniels?

Yes, Avenatti represented porn actress Stormy, at the centre of the Donald Trump sex scandal.

The former porn star, 39, claimed to have had an affair with Donald Trump while he was married to his third wife Melania in 2006.

In October 2018, Avenatti lost the defamation case his client brought against the President.

Why has he been arrested?

On March 25 2019, Avenatti was arrested in New York charged with attempting to extort up to $25million from Nike by threatening to release damaging information about the company.

The arrest took place around 15 minutes after he announced a press conference where he said he would reveal information about a high school and college basketball scandal involving Nike.

On the same day, he was separately charged with wire fraud and bank fraud.

The indictment alleged that Avenatti had embezzled money from a client and had defrauded a bank by submitting false tax returns to get over $4million in loans.

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