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source: Franklin county sheriff's office columbus, oh
stormy daniels mug shot
stormy daniels, the adult film actress who has made headlines for an alleged affair with donald trump, was arrested while performing wednesday night at a columbus, ohio, strip club after allegedly having physical contact with patrons.
Daniels' lawyer michael avenatti in a twitter post claimed the arrest "was politically motivated, and "reeks of desperation."
police said daniels was busted after allegedly touching three different undercover vice police officer during her performance at the sirens club, in violation of state law barring anyone who is not a family member from touching a dancer who is either nude or semi-nude.
Court documents reportedly claim that daniels, during her peformance, forced faces of club customers into her breasts and used her exposed breast to smack their faces. She also allegedly fondled the breast of female customers.
Daniels, whose real name is stephanie clifford, was released on bail within hours of being arrested on three counts of misdemeanor sex offenses, according to an nbc affiliate. She is scheduled to appear in court friday.
"this was a complete set up," avenatti told the associated press. "it's absurd that law-enforcement resources are being spent to conduct a sting operation related to customers touching performers in a strip club in a non-sexual manner."
avenatti told nbc news that he was of the understanding that there were multiple undercover vice officers in the club during daniels' show. After the customer touched her, according to the attorney, those officers got up and arrested the performer on the spot.
In subsequent tweets, avenatti vowed that she will plead not guilty to all of them. "we will vehemently contest" the charges, he said.
In the meantime, however, the arrest forced daniels to cancel a second performance scheduled for thursday night in columbus, according to a statement tweeted by avenatti
daniels claims she had sex with trump in 2006, while he was married to melania trump.
In october 2016, on the eve of the presidential election, michael cohen, then trump's personal attorney, used a shell company he had set up to pay daniels $130,000 in exchange for her signing a nondisclosure agreement.
Daniels has said the agreement barred her from speaking publicly about her tryst with trump. The white house has denied trump had sex with daniels, but trump has admitted reimbursing cohen for the hush-money payment to her.
In early january this year, the wall street journal broke the news about that deal arranged by the lawyers.
Daniels is suing trump and cohen seeking to have the nondisclosure agreement declared void, in light of the fact that it was never signed by trump.