Thread by @meghanncuniff

It’s Monday and I’m here at the federal courthouse in Santa Ana, California, for what should be a short status conference in Michael Avenatti’s wire fraud case. Follow this thread for updates from the courtroom.
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Avenatti's case is on Judge Selna's 9:30 a.m. calendar. There's a sentencing ahead of them, but they're doing that one now, so Avenatti's should start right at 9:30 a.m. cacd.uscourts.gov/daily-calendar

Remember, when we last left off last Wednesday, Judge Selna had ordered @TheJusticeDept to give Avenatti complete copies of the forensic images of his law firm servers. Here's my @lawdotcom article on that: bit.ly/2YR2bOs

You can catch up on all our @lawdotcom coverage of the Avenatti case here: bit.ly/3znVccj

OK, sentencing is over (she got three years probation) and Avenatti is at the defense table with his standby counsel Courtney Cummings Cefali. No Dean Steward today. AUSAs Alex Wyman, Brett Sagel and Patrick Fitzgerald are here.

(Wyman and Sagel are case prosecutors and Fitzgerald is in charge of @TheJusticeDept privilege-review team that's in charge of Avenatti's law firm servers.) Time for a progress report. Fitzgerald is updating Judge Selna.

.@FBI gave Avenatti a digital copy of the Eagan Avenatti LLP files, so defense now has "all the EA files that the privilege-review team had or have access to," Fitzgerald tells Judge Selna.

Other issue is indexed files DOJ already has. Fitzgerald says DC guy believes he's found a way to download those on hard drive and @FedEx it.
There's also an effort in LA to index the file copies there, but Fitzgerald says the tech process is going even slower than last week.

Selna asked if the indexing took place over the weekend, too.
"It did, your honor. It's just going very, very slow," Fitzgerald says.
"Well, it's going to be a seven-day-a-week project," until it's done, Selna says.
Fitzgerald says yes, the computer is working seven days a week.

Avenatti says he's found Brady material (exculpatory evidence) in the new stuff already, and he'll be filing a brief on that. Asks when he'll get the indexing from DC, and Selna says according to Fitzgerald it's "imminent."

Regarding trial logistics, Selna scheduled a pre-trial for Oct. 27 at 8:30 a.m.. Jury pool is due Nov. 2, but if the trial he's got the week before ends early, they'll bump that up.

Selna addressed Avenatti's objections about screening jurors by saying they'll get jurors in for hardship questionnaires in open court, under the supervision of either him or a magistrate judge.

https://twitter.com/meghanncuniff/status/1435668641136082948

Avenatti then told Judge Selna he needs "to seek some medical care" and inquired abut modifying his bail conditions to allow it. "It's nothing serious, your honor," Avenatti said. It's just "been a couple years since I've been able to attend to things."

Selna tells him no modification is needed, just coordinate w/ bail and probation. AUSA Sagel asked about hearing set for next Monday. Still on calendar? "Unless the 4.5 million has been produced, yes," Selna says, referring to the files Avenatti still needs from @TheJusticeDept.

So that's it. Short and to the point. Regarding the DOJ's privilege-review team, this article I did for @lawdotcom looks at the history of controversy surrounding that process and how Avenatti's mistrial differs: bit.ly/3jWNB06

Prosecutors also filed a brief last week that lays out their argument against the mistrial, and denies any exculpatory evidence has been withheld from Avenatti. That's available here: bit.ly/3lowaF2

That was filed while Avenatti was working on double jeopardy motion, which he mentioned in his reply. "Requiring him to read the 76 page submission, research the issues, and draft his response over these same days is unduly prejudicial and onerous." bit.ly/399fefW

Here's Avenatti's double jeopardy motion, which calls for Judge Selna to cancel the retrial and dismiss his indictment. Prosecutors' reply is due next Monday, and the hearing is Oct. 4. bit.ly/3lyZngO

That’s it on the Avenatti front for now. I’m headed over to @OCSuperiorCourt for a hearing in @PIMCO billionaire Bill Gross’ ongoing Laguna Beach neighbor dispute over loud music, so look for a thread on that Gilligan’s Island-inspired debacle soon. 👀

7 hours later, I’m capping the Avenatti thread with a couple pics of the courthouse cats, just snagged. 😼😼

One more thing: Avenatti filed an amended double jeopardy motion with declaration and exhibits today. I can't see the immediate difference between it and the first one, but if anyone wants to try to figure it out, please have at it. Here's the motion: bit.ly/39k92SG

Here's his original filing: bit.ly/3lyZngO It's 52 pages, whereas the amended motion filed today is 38 pages. But the declaration and exhibits this time are 571 pages, whereas the decs and exhibits for original motion were 560 pages.

First batch of decs and exhibits here: bit.ly/3hH1nCg
New batch of decs and exhibits for amended motion here: bit.ly/3hR1gUY
I will retweet whoever can identify for me the major differences in these filings. Thank you!

Update: Judge Selna gave Avenatti more pages than usual, but he still was limited to 30 pages, and his original filing went over. So he had to cut some stuff out.