Celebrity attorney Mark Geragos named as co-conspirator in Nike extortion case
Attorney Mark Geragos, a crusader for high-profile clients like Colin Kaepernick, Michael Jackson and Jussie Smollett, is one of the alleged co-conspirators in the explosive Michael Avenatti Nike extortion case.
Attorney Mark Geragos, a crusader for high-profile clients like Colin Kaepernick, Michael Jackson, Chris Brown and Jussie Smollett, is one of the alleged co-conspirators in the explosive Michael Avenatti Nike extortion case.
Avenatti, the hot-shot lawyer who represented porn star Stormy Daniels and a few R. Kelly accusers, has been arrested and was released on $300,000 bond for allegedly trying to extort Nike out of $20 million and damage the company’s reputation.
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Geragos, 61, is not named in the criminal complaint against Avenatti, but sources told The Wall Street Journal that he’s a cooperating witness that prosecutors referred to as “CC-1” in the document, The NY Post reports.
Geragos has made a career out of representing high profile clients like rap moguls Suge Knight and Sean “Diddy” Combs, actress Winona Ryder, boxer Mike Tyson, singer Chris Brown and convicted murderer Scott Peterson, according to his website.
Most recently he has taken up the Smollett alleged fake hate crime case, in an effort to help the Empire star defends against claims that he orchestrated a fake attack and filed a false police report.
Also most notably, Geragos helped Michael Jackson beat his child molestation charges in the early 2000s in California.
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Although Geragos also served as a CNN analyst, after Monday’s report that he was somehow involved with the Avenatti case, CNN released a statement saying he was “no longer” an analyst.
A criminal complaint was filed against Avenatti charging that he “devised a scheme to extort a company by means of an interstate communication by threatening to damage the company’s reputation if the company did not agree to make multi-million dollar payments to Avenatti and [co-conspirator], and further agree to pay an additional $1.5 million to a client of Avenatti’s.”
According to the complaint, last Wednesday, Avenatti and an accomplice who is now a cooperating witness talked with Nike lawyers by phone “during which Avenatti stated that if his demands for payment were not met ‘I’ll go take ten billion dollars off your client’s market cap … I’m not f—ing around.’”
