Stormy Daniels’ Charges Dismissed After an Arrest Her Lawyer Called ‘Politically Motivated’
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Adult film star Stormy Daniels, who allegedly had an affair with Trump and is currently in a legal battle with him, was arrested at a strip club in Ohio early Thursday morning. The three “illegal sexually oriented activity” misdemeanor charges against Daniels have since been dropped.
On Wednesday night, Daniels was performing at Columbus strip club Sirens. According to court documents, Daniels took the stage around 11:30 p.m. and “began forcing the faces of the patrons into her chest and using her bare breasts to smack the patrons.” Records also show that Daniels was fondling other patrons.
Among those patrons were three undercover detectives. The detectives witnessed her actions and approached the stage where Daniels proceeded to fondle an officer’s buttocks and breasts while placing each of their faces between her breasts. She was arrested shortly after due to an Ohio law called the Community Defense Act which prohibits anyone from touching a nude or semi-nude dancer unless they are a family member.
However, Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti claims that forcing a patron’s head onto her chest is part of Daniels’ act in her “Make America Horny Again” national tour. Avenatti tweeted after her arrest:
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. #Basta
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) July 12, 2018
She was arrested for allegedly allowing a customer to touch her while on stage 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!!! #SetUp#Basta
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) July 12, 2018
Avenatti later tweeted that Daniels would plea “not guilty” to the three misdemeanor charges against her. However, after Daniels posted a $6,054 bail and was released, Avenatti reported that the charges against her had been dismissed. According to the motion passed by prosecutors, the law only applies to dancers who appear nude or semi-nude “regularly” at a particular establishment. Daniels, however, had not appeared regularly at Sirens. The records also show that a Sirens dancer and a server were also arrested.
In a phone interview with The New York Times, Avenatti said:
So there are undercover vice officers that came to the club for the purpose of trying to get her to touch them so that they could then arrest her, which is ludicrous. My understanding is that a number of undercover officers were female, which was not unusual to my client because a huge number of women are turning out to see her shows,” he said. “And a couple of officers asked her to allow them to place their face in between her breasts.
Daniels was scheduled to perform at Sirens again on Thursday night. Avenatti tweeted:
Official Statement From @StormyDaniels: As a result of what happened last night, I will unfortunately be unable to go forward with tonight’s scheduled performance. I deeply apologize to my fans in Columbus.
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) July 12, 2018
Daniels has gained nationwide notoriety after she claimed she had an affair with Trump in 2006 and accused him of paying her $130,000 in hush money during the 2016 election. Trump has denied the affair and the hush money, but his former attorney Michael Cohen let it slip that he paid her. In 2016, Daniels sued Trump claiming that he never signed the nondisclosure or “hush” agreement, in hopes of making it invalid.