Stormy Daniels Arrested for Alleged “Motorboating” at Ohio Strip Club [UPDATE]

By Maggie Serota

Adult performer turned Trump adversary Stormy Daniels was arrested Wednesday night (July 11) after allegedly allowing a patron of the Cleveland, Ohio strip club Sirens to touch her, which is a violation of state law. According to TMZ, the customer Daniels allowed to “motorboat” her turned out to be Columbus police officer Mary Prather. In addition to touching Prather’s breasts and butt during her act, Daniels allegedly placed the officer’s face on her breasts. The law apparently allows exotic dancers to be touched only by family members while in the club, which admittedly sounds a little excessive. Two other unidentified people were also reportedly arrested at Sirens last night.

Daniels, best known for revealing her alleged 2006 affair with then-Apprentice host Donald Trump and the subsequent hush money payout she received shortly before his 2016 election win, was charged with three misdemeanor counts of touching a patron at a “sexually oriented business.” She was released Thursday morning on a $6,000 bond.

“Just [received] word that my client @StormyDaniels was arrested in Columbus Ohio [while] performing the same act she has performed across the nation at nearly a hundred strip clubs,” Daniels’s lawyer Michael Avenatti tweeted Thursday morning. “This was a setup [and] politically motivated. It reeks of desperation. We will fight all bogus charges.” TMZ obtained video of a separate strip club appearance in Florida earlier this year, where Daniels indeed can be seen allowing a customer to motorboat her while onstage.

Avenatti followed up with tweets announcing his intention to fight the charges.

Avenatti, an avid cable news guest, appeared on MSNBC following Daniels’s arrest to argue that his client was the victim of a set-up. “She was there for her performance, and unbeknownst to her, the police set up a sting operation within the strip club with multiple officers,” he said. “During her performance, they asked her if they could place their face in between her breasts while she was performing on stage.”

“It just seems absurd to me that this is something that would require this amount of resources and would result in the arrest of my client,” Avenatti continued. “I’ve been in touch with prosecutors this morning. We’ve been up all night dealing with the situation. I think they are going to be reasonable about this. I think they are going to be diligent and appear to be incredibly professional and we thank them for that.”

Daniels has canceled the rest of her live engagements until the matter is settled.

Update (1:42 p.m.): All three misdemeanor charges against Daniels have been dropped, CNN reports. According to court docs, prosecutors have decided not to proceed with the charges because Daniels, born Stephanie Clifford, is not a regular performer at the club where she was arrested.

“I’ve determined that these crimes were not committed, based on the fact that Ms. Clifford has not made regular appearances at this establishment as required under the law,” Columbus prosecutor Zach Klein said in a statement.

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