"I didn't buy a jet," Alexis Gardner snapped when Michael J. Avenatti, defending himself on charges he stole his client's money, asked her if she signed the settlement agreement that he negotiated with her ex-boyfriend, the NBA player Hassan Whiteside.

Between sobs and tart retorts, a woman who says attorney Michael J. Avenatti stole millions of dollars of her settlement money to buy an airplane kept jurors' attention for a second day of testimony Tuesday.

"I didn't buy a jet," Alexis Gardner snapped when Avenatti asked her if she signed the settlement agreement that he negotiated with her ex-boyfriend, the NBA player Hassan Whiteside.

Even though that answer was stricken from the record by Senior U.S. District Judge ...

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Aug. 4, 2021

Avenatti's former client testifies with sobs, tart retorts

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