Stormy Daniels and lawyer Michael Avenatti leave the Daniel P. Moynihan Courthouse in Manhattan after a hearing in front of Judge Kimba Wood regarding a search warrant that was executed at the home, hotel and office of Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen. Photo: David Handschuh/NYLJ

Michael Avenatti has again asked a Manhattan federal judge to transfer his pending criminal case to California, where he is also under federal indictment, arguing that complications from the COVID-19 pandemic made it impractical to proceed with separate trials on two coasts.

The embattled celebrity attorney, who was convicted in February of trying to extort Nike Inc., on Thursday renewed his bid to transfer the case charging him with stealing money from his former client, adult-film star Stormy Daniels, from New York to Los Angeles.

He is also accused in the Central District of California of stealing millions of dollars from former clients and then submitting false tax returns.

Avenatti, who rose to prominence representing Daniels in her lawsuits against President Donald Trump, argued in a six-page transfer motion that both cases should be tried together, due to the strains on judicial resources resulting from the pandemic.

"In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is no compelling reason to proceed with two separate trials on two different coasts. The conservation of judicial and juror resources, as well as the protection of the public from exposure to SARS-CoV-2, are paramount," wrote attorney Thomas Warren, of Warren Terzian in Los Angeles.

The late U.S. District Judge Deborah A. Batts of the Southern District of New York denied a similar request by Avenatti and his lawyer, H. Dean Steward, last September, finding that a move to consolidate the two cases likely would create more problems than it would solve. Consolidation, she said, would not be automatic, and a transfer would require the New York prosecution team to relocate for a time to the West Coast.

Since then, however, the COVID-19 crisis has forced the Southern District to shutter nearly all in-person operations, and jury trials in the district have been postponed indefinitely. The judge overseeing the sprawling criminal case in California in April also ordered Avenatti temporarily released from Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Center, where he had been awaiting sentencing in the Nike case, due to health concerns stemming from the pandemic.

In Thursday's motion, Warren said that growing court backlogs and concerns about public safety had only bolstered his client's arguments in support of his transfer motion.

"There is no reason to assemble two jury venires and unnecessarily expose two sets of judicial participants—judges, law clerks, jurors, attorneys, witnesses, court reporters, court clerks, members of the public, and the media—to possible infection with SARS-CoV-2, which has already infected more than 2 million Americans and killed more than 110,000 at the time of this writing," he said.

The motion is now before U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman of the Southern District of New York, who has taken over the case following Batts' sudden death in February.

The move also comes after federal prosecutors in California this week accused Avenatti of violating the terms of his release by using a computer to draft his own legal filings while under home confinement at a friend's house in California.

Steward responded that his client has complied with all of the terms of his release and said that Avenatti had not used the internet since his release from jail.

The Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office has accused Avenatti of stealing money from book payments belonging to his former client Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. He has maintained his innocence and repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Trial in the case is tentatively set for October; however, court shutdowns resulting from the pandemic make it unlikely that trials in the Southern District will resume until next year, sources have told the Law Journal.

In California, Avenatti is charged tax fraud, bankruptcy fraud and other offenses in a 36-count indictment alleging that he had stolen from former clients. In particular, he faces 10 counts of wire fraud for pocketing millions of dollars from more than $12 million he received during the past five years as part of four settlements, including one on behalf of a paraplegic client.

Avenatti has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

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