Stormy Daniels Arrested While Dancing at Club

Adult film actress Stormy Daniels was arrested early Thursday morning at a strip club in Ohio and [...]

By Libby Birk

Adult film actress Stormy Daniels was arrested early Thursday morning at a strip club in Ohio and faces three counts of illegally touching a patron, according to court records.

Daniels' lawyer, Michael Avenatti, vowed to fight the "bogus charges" of what he is calling a "setup" that was "politically motivated."

"She was arrested for allegedly allowing a customer to touch her while on stage in a nonsexual manner! Are you kidding me?" Avenatti tweeted Thursday. "They are devoting law enforcement resources to sting operations for this? There has to be higher priorities!"

Daniels was topless when she "knowingly" touched a female Columbus police officer's buttocks, placed her hands on the officer's breast and then put her chest in the officer's face while "on the premise of a sexually oriented business," according to documents from the Franklin County Municipal Court obtained by WBNS.

Under the 2007 Community Defense Act, dancers are prohibited from touching customers and vice versa, excluding immediate family members.

Avenatti said Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, was arrested while "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," he tweeted, including a hashtag for the word "basta" which is Italian for "enough."

After posting a $6,054 bail, Daniel was released, court records show. Documents on the Franklin County Municipal Court website show that she will be arraigned Friday at 9 a.m.

Later Thursday morning, Avenatti said that Daniels "will issue a plea of 'Not Guilty' to the three misdemeanor charges."

In an official statement via Avenatti, Daniels announced that she is canceling her Thursday night performance. "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," she said.

Daniels made headlines for allegedly having an affair with Donald Trump in 2006. She claims that she received $130,000 from his lawyer in exchange for her silence about the alleged sexual encounter. Trump denies the affair.

She is suing Trump and his former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to be released from a nondisclosure agreement that she says she signed days before the 2016 presidential election to prevent her from publicly discussing the alleged affair. Avenatti alleges that the payment was a violation of campaign finance law and designed to suppress speech. Trump has said that he personally reimbursed Cohen for that payment.

Financial disclosure forms released in May show Trump "fully reimbursed" Cohen. The annual public disclosure shows that he paid Cohen between $100,001 and $250,000 for unspecified purposes in 2017.

The filing does not identify the reason for the payment to Cohen. It says vaguely that Cohen incurred expenses in 2016 and later sought reimbursement for those expense and that "Mr. Trump fully reimbursed Mr. Cohen in 2017."

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