Avenatti, 47, a persistent critic of the president in his capacity as the lawyer for Daniels, was arrested in November on suspicion of domestic violence. He has denied the allegations.
Frank Mateljan, a spokesman for the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office, said Friday that the city attorney, Mike Feuer, would not file charges against Avenatti at this time but reserved the right to do so.
“The city attorney’s office has reviewed all of the reports in this matter and considered all of the evidence,” Mateljan said in a statement. “The suspect will be informed that although we decline to file charges at this time, this matter remains open and we may file charges at any time prior to the expiration of the statute of limitations.”
Mateljan said there were two possible criminal counts that Avenatti could have faced: injury to a spouse or cohabitant, which has a three-year statute of limitations, and battery, which has a one-year statute of limitations.
He said Avenatti and his accuser, Mareli Miniutti, 24, would have separate “informal” hearings with staff members from the city attorney’s office at which a judge would not be present. He said those hearings had not yet been scheduled.
Avenatti celebrated the city attorney’s decision.
“I said at the time of my arrest that I would be fully exonerated and after three thorough, detailed and professional investigations by the LAPD, district attorney and city attorney, the truth has now come out,” he said in a text message. “The fact that there wasn’t even enough evidence to charge me, let alone convict me, demonstrates how baseless this was. The system worked.”
On Friday, Miniutti’s lawyer, Michael Bachner, expressed disbelief at the decision.
He said a representative of the city attorney’s office told him they believed Miniutti’s claims but had decided not to charge Avenatti because they thought a jury would not convict him. He also said investigators from the office had declined to interview Miniutti.
“It is an outrage that this decision was made particularly since Ms. Miniutti was never interviewed by any member of the city attorney’s office, despite our requests, and despite the pictures of her injuries,” he said in a statement. “It is clear to us that the city attorney simply found it easier to avoid doing its job.”
Mateljan, the spokesman for the city attorney, declined to respond to Bachner’s claims.
Miniutti, who was in a relationship with Avenatti last year, told police in November that he had beaten her and dragged her along the floor of their apartment during a fight about money, according to court documents. Miniutti also said Avenatti had chased her to the ground floor of their building in an effort to stop her from alerting the building’s front desk and security staff.
Avenatti was arrested shortly after Miniutti made her abuse allegation. He was booked into jail on suspicion of domestic violence but was soon released after posting $50,000 bail. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office later referred the case to the city attorney’s office for “misdemeanor filing consideration.”
Shortly after Miniutti made her abuse allegations, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge granted her a temporary restraining order against Avenatti. Her lawyer, Bachner, said that restraining order remained in effect on Friday.
Avenatti, who flirted with a run for the Democratic presidential nomination last year, has styled himself as a liberal champion and advocated aggressively pushing back against Trump.
He filed a lawsuit last year against the president on behalf of Daniels that sought to invalidate a nondisclosure agreement she had reached with Trump in 2016 relating to a sexual relationship she said she had with Trump in 2006.
But Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, distanced herself from Avenatti after his arrest, saying in November that he sometimes spoke on her behalf without her consent and had filed a defamation suit against the president against her wishes. (Days later she tweeted that they had sorted things out.) That lawsuit was dismissed in October by a federal judge who ordered Daniels to pay Trump’s legal fees.
Avenatti has filed multiple lawsuits on behalf of Clifford. In addition to the lawsuit concerning the nondisclosure agreement, another lawsuit claims that her previous lawyer, Keith Davidson, conspired with Trump and his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to keep her quiet about that relationship.
Last month, Avenatti also filed a lawsuit on her behalf against the Police Department in Columbus, Ohio, whose vice unit arrested her after she appeared at a strip club there in July.
Daniels claims she was arrested because the officers were Trump supporters. Police said she violated a law that prohibits dancers from touching patrons during a strip tease.
Daniels did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.