Print Alexis Gardner was living out of her car in West Hollywood when she hired Los Angeles lawyer Michael Avenatti in 2016 to reach a settlement with her ex-boyfriend, pro basketball player Hassan Whiteside. Avenatti quickly cut a deal, but prosecutors say he stole Whiteside’s initial $2.75-million payment to Gardner and spent most of it on a private jet. Avenatti covered up the theft, they say, by telling his client that Whiteside, then with the NBA’s Miami Heat, would send her monthly payments of $16,000 for eight years. Gardner complained in a text to Avenatti more than a year later that Whiteside had fallen behind with the payments.