Michael Avenatti, center, walks into the federal courthouse in Orange County, California, on July 21 with his advisory counsel, H. Dean Steward, right, and Courtney Cummings Cefali, left. Photo: Meghann M. Cuniff/ALM

Amid a packed schedule of cable TV appearances, Michael Avenatti spent time in 2018 trying to appease a client asking about a $3 million settlement.

Alexis Gardner had known the celebrity attorney since December 2016, when he began representing her in a contentious dispute with her ex-boyfriend, NBA player Hassan Whiteside, and she was relying on him to continue hounding Whiteside and his lawyer about missed monthly settlement payments of $16,000 to $20,000.

"I thought he was working for me all the time. I was very confident that the person calling me was doing the things he had said and was in my corner," Gardner testified Friday in Avenatti's federal wire fraud trial in the Central District of California in Santa Ana.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Brett Sagel worked to establish during his direct examination of Gardner that Avenatti allegedly wasn't trying to force payments from Whiteside. Whiteside's financial adviser had paid Avenatti's law firm $2.75 million a year earlier, and the final $250,000 wasn't due until November 2020, Sagel worked to prove. And there were no monthly payments, despite what Avenatti had told Gardner. Instead, Avenatti had allegedly spent most of the $2.75 million on a jet, and he was allegedly using other money from his firm to make sporadic payments to Gardner that he told her were coming from Whiteside.

Sagel walked jurors through this using financial records, text messages, emails and the settlement document while questioning Gardner about an attorney-client relationship that unraveled into a federal wire fraud indictment.

"Would you have expected the defendant to tell you … if he had received a $2.75 million transfer into his account from Hassan Whiteside?" Sagel asked.

"Yes," Gardner answered.

"Why?" Sagel asked.

"Because that's what I hired him to do, to help me. I thought that he would be honest and truthful with what we discussed," Gardner answered, her voice breaking.

Gardner cried when asked to identify Avenatti in U.S. District Judge James V. Selna's courtroom, sobbing for 30 seconds or so before pointing at him as he stood at the defense table.

Two hours of questioning and a 15-minute break later, Sagel ended his direct with a line of questioning that centered on the heart of the wire fraud charge involving Gardner.

"If the defendant received settlement money on your behalf, what did you expect him to do with it?" Sagel asked.

"Tell me, and send it to me," Gardner answered.

"Did you ever authorize the defendant to use your settlement money to buy a private plane?" Sagel asked as his final question.

"No," Gardner answered.

As the second of four ex-clients set to testify against Avenatti, Gardner's direct exam Friday painted a portrait of an alleged two-and-a-half-year scheme that overlapped with Avenatti's increasing fame and public talk of a possible presidential bid. In fall 2018, as Avenatti was pushing sexual misconduct allegations against then-U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, he also was blaming Gardner's lack of money on Whiteside and assuring her he was doing what he could to track it down. Gardner testified that the alleged missed payments began in the spring, which is around the time Avenatti burst onto the national political scene as porn star Stormy Daniels' lawyer in her lawsuit against President Donald Trump over a nondisclosure agreement related to their affair.

In one text exchange entered as evidence, Gardner asked about her deposit and Avenatti responded, "Did you not get it?" and when Gardner said "Nope," he replied, "I will find out!!!!"

"That's what he told me. He reassured me constantly, all the time," Gardner testified Friday.

A student and aspiring musician, Gardner was living in her car when her mother arranged for her to meet with Avenatti about her conflict with Whiteside. She signed a contingency agreement on the spot, and he got her into an apartment while acting so genuinely concerned about her that she thought for sure she had the strongest of advocates in her corner, she told the jury.

Avenatti told Gardner of the $3 million settlement, according to her testimony, but he didn't give her a copy of the agreement. He also told her it involved Whiteside depositing $16,000 then eventually $20,000 into Gardner's account each month. When Gardner complained to Avenatti, he directed her ire to Whiteside and assured her he was doing everything he could to force him to pay, she told jurors.

As Avenatti's profile grew with his public battle against President Trump, so did Gardner's doubts, but not about Avenatti. She testified she began to doubt whether her plight was worth his time.

"Michael's all over the news. I felt like based off the things he was dealing with in the public eye, my problems were minuscule," Gardner said.

"At that time did you know that any of your financial problems were related to the defendant?" Sagel asked.

"No," Gardner answered.

"Did he ever say to you, 'Your problems are because of me'?" Sagel asked.

"No," Gardner answered.

Before Gardner took the stand, Whiteside's lawyer, Joel Weiner, a partner at Katten Muchin Rosenman in Century City, detailed the settlement agreement for jurors in a direct exam with Sagel. They reached it on Jan. 7, 2017, during a mediation with retired Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Louis Meisinger of Signature Resolution, and Weiner sent Avenatti the first payment of $2.75 million within three weeks as the agreement specified. Before he did, he fielded several inquiries from Avenatti, including two voice mails asking where the money was.

"Were there any issues with the settlement at that point?" Sagel asked.

"Not that I was aware of. He was just anxious to get the payment," Weiner answered.

Ten months after Avenatti got the money, Weiner contacted him to complain that Gardner was trying to contact Whiteside in violation of their settlement, according to the testimony.

"Did you ever tell the defendant you do not know why your client was not making his monthly obligations to Ms. Gardner?" Sagel asked.

"There would be no reason for me to say that because there weren't any monthly obligations at that time," Weiner answered.

Meanwhile, Gardner was desperate. As demonstrated by her attempts to contact Whiteside, her financial problems were growing increasingly dire, and she was struggling to pay her rent and school tuition. But her support for Avenatti didn't waver. Sagel had her read to the jury Friday a text message she sent Avenatti on Thanksgiving 2018.

"Hello my phenomenal lawyer, confidant and future president. Happy Thanksgiving," it read. "I'm so thankful for you and how you came into my life and changed it for the better. Thank you for being not only a fighter for those in need but also a true champion."

"When you told him that he changed your life for the better, did he tell you at that time that Hassan Whiteside already paid him $2.75 million in January 2017?" Sagel asked.

"No," Gardner answered.

Gardner said she stayed in contact with Avenatti up until at least a month before his March 2019 arrest. 

On Feb. 23, 2019, she said she emailed him a long list of her plans for a music career and her legal interests in that area. She worried Avenatti's suggestion to pursue Whiteside through a public legal action could harm her career, and she suggested altering the settlement to get a lump sum instead of monthly payments, which at that point she hadn't received in eight months.

Gardner also apologized in the email and said she "wanted to be able to afford you for what you're worth" and that she felt bad she couldn't "bring to the table what other clients potentially can in the financial department."

"I felt like if I could pay him, that he would work to solve my issues," Gardner testified.

Avenatti, who's representing himself, began his cross-examination by asking Gardner about the care she took preserving text messages for prosecutors, and the process they used to search her home. He also asked her to show him the text message she sent him asking for a copy of her settlement agreement. She couldn't because, as she told him, she never sent one. 

Avenatti's cross continues Tuesday. Follow a live Twitter feed from the courtroom here.