Stormy Daniels Arrested For Strip Club Act, Michael Avenatti Says, Calling Ohio Bust ‘Politically Motivated’
Stormy Daniels, the 39-year-old adult film star and member of the Adult Video News Hall of Fame, was arrested in Columbus, Ohio, Wednesday night, according to her lawyer who announced the arrest of Daniels in a Twitter post.
“Just rcvd word that my client @StormyDaniels was arrested in Columbus Ohio whole performing the same act she has performed across the nation at nearly a hundred strip clubs. This was a setup & politically motivated. It reeks of desperation. We will fight all bogus charges,” Avenatti wrote.
But a report by Fox News said that neither the Columbus police nor the strip club where Daniels was performing had confirmed that there had been an arrest.
Nonetheless, Avenatti offered more detail about 20 minutes after his initial post, according to a report by The Daily Beast. Daniels, Avenatti said, was busted for allowing a customer to touch her “in a non-sexual manner.”
“Are you kidding me? They are devoting law enforcement resources to sting operations for this? There has to be higher priorities!!!” Avenatti wrote on his Twitter feed.
Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, is currently suing Donald Trump and Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen over a “hush agreement” she signed in 2016, just days before the presidential election, in which she took a $130,000 payment arranged by Cohen in exchange for her silence about a sexual encounter she had with Trump in 2006, as the Inquisitr reported.
Avenatti later posted a third Twitter message saying that Daniels, who was apparently jailed, would be released on bail “shortly.”
“We also expect that she will be charged with a misdemeanor for allowing ‘touching,'” Avenatti wrote. “We will vehemently contest all charges.”
But outside of Avenatti’s Twitter posts, the circumstances surrounding the alleged arrest remained unclear. A CBS News report also said that the local police did not confirm the arrest.
“Columbus police tell CBS News they’re not aware of Daniels being arrested, and as of early Thursday, Daniels wasn’t being held by the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department,” CBS reported. “The club, called Sirens, would only say ‘no comment’ when reached by CBS News.”
According to the CBS report, an Ohio state law known as the Community Defense Act makes it illegal for anyone other than a family member to touch a nude or semi-nude live performer. Why the law requires that a nude dancer be arrested because someone else touched her is also unclear.
Stormy Daniels is arrested for getting touched?
Typically it’s the toucher getting in trouble, not the touched, right?
— Couchdoorsman (@Couchdoorsman) July 12, 2018
“This was a complete set up,” Avenatti said, as quoted by the New York Post. “It’s absurd that law enforcement resources are being spent to conduct a sting operation related to customers touching performers in a strip club in a non-sexual manner.”
