A New Jersey fraudster who was pardoned by President Trump in 2021 was sentenced to 37 years in prison this month for running a $44 million Ponzi scheme, one of a growing number of people granted clemency by Mr. Trump only to be charged with new crimes.
The man, Eliyahu Weinstein, was pardoned by Mr. Trump in 2021 and was re-indicted by the U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey three years later. He was accused of swindling investors who thought their money was being used to buy surgical masks, baby formula and first-aid kits bound for Ukraine, and a jury convicted him in April of several crimes, including conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud.
“Mr. Weinstein received a gift only a few have received in the United States, a presidential commutation,” Judge Michael Shipp of Federal District Court in New Jersey said during the sentencing hearing. “Just months after he was released from prison and while on supervised release, he squandered this coveted gift by immediately defrauding investors of their hard-earned money.”
Mr. Weinstein’s victims included a single mother of three who was compelled to sell her home after failing to receive the returns she had expected. Calling Mr. Weinstein a “predator,” Judge Shipp concluded that, as the ringleader of the scheme, he deserved “the harshest punishment.”
A lawyer for Mr. Weinstein did not immediately respond to a request for comment. One of Mr. Weinstein’s co-conspirators, Aryeh Bromberg, was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Both were also ordered to pay $44 million in restitution to their victims.
Mr. Weinstein, who referred to himself in a recording played at the trial as “the Ponzi guy,” is one of a number of those Mr. Trump has pardoned who have gone on to face new criminal charges — often shortly after receiving presidential relief.
Some of those pardoned for their role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol have quickly drawn new attention from law enforcement. The group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said in June that at least 10 of the more than 1,500 who were pardoned had been rearrested and charged, and the number has only grown since then.
Earlier this month, a man who was pardoned after having participated in the Jan. 6 attack was charged with sex crimes against two children. Another man whose original sentence Mr. Trump commuted in 2021 was recently sentenced to 27 months in prison after convictions on physical and sexual assault, among other crimes.
Mr. Trump announced he had commuted Mr. Weinstein’s 24-year sentence on the last day of his first term in the White House.
Federal prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey pursued the new charges against Mr. Weinstein aggressively, winning a conviction on 15 counts after a six-week trial.
But by then the state’s top federal prosecutor had changed, making the victory inherently tricky for the office’s new boss, Alina Habba, a former personal lawyer for Mr. Trump who played a public role in his re-election campaign.
Ms. Habba initially met with Mr. Weinstein’s defense team without the prosecutors on the case present, irking her staff and raising questions about how she would handle the case, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. But her prosecutors ultimately pushed for harsh punishment for Mr. Weinstein.
“The government is asking for a very significant sentence in this case,” one of the prosecutors, Carolyn Silane, said last week in court before requesting that Mr. Weinstein be sentenced to 50 years in prison. She acknowledged that it was an “incredibly unusual ask” before noting that, taking both crimes into account, Mr. Weinstein had over the course of two decades stolen a quarter of a billion dollars.
Ms. Silane argued that Mr. Weinstein had shown no pity for victims of his schemes. When one confronted him, she said, he responded with a joke, saying, “What do your wife and I have in common?”
“I don’t know,” the victim said.
We both screwed you, Mr. Weinstein said, using a harsher word than screwed.
Tracey Tully is a reporter for The Times who covers New Jersey, where she has lived for more than 20 years.
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