With his three federal criminal cases nearly over, Michael Avenatti still managed to garner another judicial blemish this week in the form of a jury verdict delivered in a lawsuit over a former co-counsel's missing $5.4 million attorney fee. 

It was unanimous, even though it didn't have to be: After about 2 1/2 hours of deliberation on Wednesday for an 18-page verdict form, all 12 Orange County Superior Court jurors agreed Avenatti "substantially" interfered in Los Angeles attorney Robert Stoll's ability to collect money he was rightfully owed.

The jury concluded Stoll hadn't done his fair share of the work, but they still concluded he was due something. They wouldn't, however, blame the people Stoll wanted to blame: his former clients William Parrish and E. Timothy Fitzgibbons. 

Instead, jurors said afterward that they felt as though Avenatti was on trial, and they convicted him of everything they could. A few discussed their verdict with the attorneys in the hallway outside the courtroom, saying they feel bad for Stoll and believe he's owed money, also while calling Avenatti a liar and a sociopath who victimized his own clients by dragging them into a lawsuit that's dragged on for 11 years.

"We all agree he's very smart. He's calculating. He's charismatic. He knows how to disarm people," the jury forewoman said.

The 2015 video deposition that gave jurors a firsthand look at the now-imprisoned Avenatti contained "a couple of tells" that indicated deceit, she said, including awkwardly long pauses and repeated hand scratching when discussing Parrish and Fitzgibbons' roles, which their new lawyers pointed out in trial.

"He's a liar. They are victims," the forewoman told a reporter.

Though Avenatti initiated the case in 2011, seeking an order that he didn't owe Stoll anything, he eventually stopped responding to filings and wasn't allowed to participate in the trial as a party. Instead, Orange County Superior Court Judge Walter Schwarm is scheduled to enter a default judgment against him on Monday, money Stoll and his lawyer James Keathley don't expect they'll ever see. 

After the verdict was read Wednesday, Stoll told Parrish and Fitzgibbons' lawyers Chris Wesierski of Wesierski & Zurek and Larry Conlan of Cappello & Noël that he holds no ill will against them. Parrish also told Keathley he was a great lawyer who did well with the evidence he had.

The trial featured six days of testimony, including from Brian Panish of Panish Shea Boyle Ravipudi in Los Angeles, who was co-counsel with Avenatti and Stoll on the case and testified last about his own financial disagreement with Avenatti. 

As laid out in trial testimony and exhibits, it was Panish who first joined forces with Stoll to represent Fitzgibbons and Panish in a malicious prosecution lawsuit against their former company FLIR Systems, which had unsuccessfully sued them for trade secrets misappropriation.

Panish brought in Avenatti, and they ended up securing a $39 million settlement from FLIR in 2011, with about $15.4 million in attorney fees. Parrish and Fitzgibbons fired Stoll but testified they trusted Avenatti was keeping Stoll's portion of the attorney fees in a client trust fund as he worked through their payment dispute. Each testified they didn't know until after they fired Avenatti in 2018 that he'd blamed them for the dispute. 

With Stoll's firm Stoll, Nussbaum & Polakov as the plaintiff, Keathley accused Parrish and Fitzgibbons of breach of contract, vicarious liability, conversion and aiding and abetting Avenatti's conversion and breach of fiduciary duty, with Avenatti's 2015 deposition as key evidence. In his closing, Keathley also pointed to testimony from Panish in which Panish said he told Avenatti him to work things out with Stoll, but Avenatti told him the clients didn't want to.