NEW YORK—It had just started to drizzle and the wind picked up Monday evening when Michael Avenatti finally burst through the brass doors of the U.S. District Courthouse in Lower Manhattan. Dozens of reporters and photographers—and even a few intrigued Con Edison workers drilling on Worth Street—had been waiting hours for the celebrity attorney to exit the building.
A handful of U.S. Marshals created a path to help escort him to a black SUV, but Avenatti isn’t one to ignore a photo op. Instead of taking a right out of the courthouse and neglecting the press, he bolted left toward the microphones.