A convicted felon and loan shark from New York, whose sentence was commuted by President Donald Trump because of family connections, has been found guilty of violating parole and was charged with multiple violent crimes.
Jonathan Braun, 42, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2019 for his role in smuggling over 220,000 pounds of marijuana before Trump granted him clemency in 2021, faces up to five years in prison if charged for all of the new crimes. His hearing is slated to take place on October 9, reports The Guardian.
Since his release from federal prison, Braun faces a laundry list of new charges after allegedly swinging an IV pole at a hospital nurse, harassing a family nanny, and evading at least 75 tolls in his white Lamborghini and black Ferrari, according to The New York Times. A federal judge ruled that prosecutors had, “by a preponderance of the evidence,” proven that Braun had violated his parole, The Guardian reported.
Trump commuted Braun’s 10-year sentence after Braun’s family leveraged connections to Charles Kushner, the disbarred attorney and father of Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Trump has since positioned himself as a tough-on-crime president.
Braun also exchanged information about his loan shark business with federal prosecutors during an investigation into predatory lending, helping him secure his early release.
The commutation was highly controversial and was viewed by law enforcement officials as a sign that the president’s office had used its power to grant clemency arbitrarily, The New York Times reported. The Daily Beast has reached out to Braun’s lawyers and the White House for comment.
According to testimony from Braun’s nanny, as documented by The New York Times, Braun had a temper. She told the courts that, after getting into an argument with his parents and wife, he barged into the nanny’s room, forced her onto the bed, put her in a headlock, and groped her as he pushed her hand over his genitals.
In late March, Braun was accused of shoving his three-year-old son to the ground and punching a guest in his home before Judge Kiyo Matsumoto, a senior United States district judge, dismissed the case for lack of evidence, The Guardian reports.
Braun pleaded not guilty to those crimes, but has been in federal custody since he was detained in April, as he had been arrested five times since his sentence was commuted, according to The New York Times.
