Michael Avenatti, attorney and founding partner of Eagan Avenatti LP, arrives to federal court in Santa Ana, Calif., on July 20, 2021. Photo: Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg NY Judge in Avenatti Case Endorses DOJ Taint Teams Despite Mistrial in California
U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman on Thursday rejected a bid by Michael Avenatti to halt DOJ review of a newly accessed iPad in his wire fraud case involving ex-client Stormy Daniels. Distinguishing the case from the recent mistrial in California, the judge dismissed an oft-cited Fourth Circuit opinion criticizing the DOJ's privilege-review teams and said courts in his Second Circuit "have long blessed such procedures."
September 10, 2021 at 10:26 AM
10 minute read
The complaints began as soon as federal agents raided the Baltimore law firm's offices in June 2019. With investigators rifling through documents and searching computers, attorneys with Brown, Goldstein & Levy urged them to only seize materials directly connected to the lawyer and client named in the money-laundering probe.
No one did so. But a year later, a trio of justices with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit sided with the firm in an opinion that likened the U.S. Department of Justice's process for filtering potentially attorney-client-privileged material to "the government's fox in charge of guarding the law firm's henhouse."
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