After passing through stormy weather, the private jet that previously belonged to disgraced attorney Michael Avenatti is up for sale. The lawyer’s HondaJet was seized by the government shortly following Avenatti’s arrest in 2019 and has sat in a California hangar for five years. Stormy Daniels’s ex-attorney had purchased the very light jet (VLJ) with William Parrish in 2017 for a cool $4.3 million. Parrish, who had nothing to do with Avenatti’s law firm or legal troubles, was actually on the runway preparing to take off from Santa Barbara airport when the Feds moved in and confiscated the aircraft.
“The infamous jet has an interesting story behind it,” says Michelle Hoover of Global Elite Aviation, who has been tasked with selling the HondaJet after her client purchased it from a government auction late last year.
A photo of the jet shortly after it was seized.
US DEpt. of Justice
Despite being on the ground for five years, Hoover says the HondaJet is in good condition. The aircraft remained in a hangar in Chino, Calif., where the government stores its confiscated property. The engines were started every month to keep the aircraft running. “Avenatti didn’t spare any expense when he bought it,” she says. “It had the leather-seat upgrades, a cabin management system, G3000 avionics, and even Wi-Fi, which added $100,000 to the cost.”
The HondaJet has been kept in a hangar in Chino, Calif., for five years.
Global Elite Aviation
The private jet is being prepared for its first flight in the next few days to HondaJet headquarters in Greensboro, N.C., for some maintenance. “The owner wanted to eliminate any questions of its airworthiness,” says Hoover. “It has less than 400 hours, and the interior is in good shape. It hasn’t had any passengers in five years.”
The asking price will be set around $3.5 million, says Hoover, who expects the sale to take six to nine months. She hopes the timing of the sale, coinciding with the media blitz of a high-profile criminal trial in lower Manhattan, could give it some notoriety.
But the purchase could take longer than planned. The HondaJet, while carrying a high reputation, is not a high-volume aircraft. Only three were sold in the U.S. in the first quarter of this year.