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Nike Texts Said to Mock FBI Emerge in Avenatti Criminal Case

Nike Texts Said to Mock FBI Emerge in Avenatti Extortion Case

(Bloomberg) -- Celebrity lawyer Michael Avenatti said that recently unearthed text messages in which he says Nike Inc. executives mock the Federal Bureau of Investigation justify forcing their testimony at his New York trial for allegedly extorting millions of dollars from the company.

Avenatti is facing federal charges that he demanded Nike pay him as much as $25 million or he would hold a damaging press conference announcing a youth basketball coach’s allegations that the company made illegal payments to elite players. The texts, marked confidential by the government, show Nike wasn’t serious about aiding the government in its probe of the same allegations, Avenatti argued in a court filing Thursday.

“Nike’s contempt for the government’s investigation of its conduct is readily apparent from documents viewed by the defense for the first time just yesterday,” Avenatti’s lawyer Scott Srebnick said in the filing. “For instance, right in the middle of the FBI investigation, on April 11, 2018, two of the subpoenaed Nike executives were sending each other texts cursing at the FBI and pejoratively ridiculing the investigation.”

Nike Texts Said to Mock FBI Emerge in Avenatti Criminal Case

According to Avenatti, Nike and its lawyers used settlement talks to try to incriminate him before his client could blow the whistle on the company. In doing so, Avenatti claims, Nike tried to “curry favor” with federal prosecutors by secretly recording its lawyers negotiating with him.

Avenatti, who gained a national profile after suing President Donald Trump on behalf of porn star Stormy Daniels, claims Nike wasn’t fully cooperating with the federal probe, which previously led to convictions of a former Adidas AG executive, assistant college basketball coaches and others.

U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe is weighing Avenatti’s request to subpoena the executives before his trial, which starts Jan. 21.

The Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office, which is prosecuting the case, declined to comment.

Nike said in a statement that it “will not respond to the allegations of an individual facing federal charges of fraud and extortion. Nike will continue its cooperation with the government’s investigation into grassroots basketball and the related extortion case.”

Beaverton, Oregon-based Nike, the world’s biggest sports apparel and footwear maker, argued in an earlier court filing that the testimony of its executives would be irrelevant because they don’t have knowledge of Avenatti’s alleged attempt at extortion.

According to prosecutors Avenatti tried to extort Nike by telling the company’s lawyers at Boies Schiller Flexner LLP that he would hold a press conference if they didn’t pay his client $1.5 million and hire him to conduct the internal probe of Nike. The press conference could knock $1 billion off Nike’s market value, Avenatti allegedly said at the time.

Avenatti argues the real wrongdoing was happening at Nike, and that his demand in settlement talks that he be hired to conduct an investigation wasn’t unreasonable given the company’s alleged conduct. Nike’s lawyers appeared to be amenable to the idea and actually said their own firm would probably charge between $10 and $20 million for such an assignment, according to Avenatti’s filing.

Avenatti claims Nike failed to produce critical documents to the government “until it became apparent” that his client was about to blow the whistle on the company.

The case is U.S. v. Avenatti, 19-cr-00373, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Peter Jeffrey, Anthony Lin

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