Judge jails Trump clemency recipient Jonathan Braun after child assault arrest

Judge jails Trump clemency recipient Jonathan Braun after child assault arrest


The seal of the US Department of Justice in Washington, DC on March 21, 2024. 

Mandel Ngan | Afp | Getty Images

A New York federal judge on Friday ordered the jailing of convicted drug dealer and predatory lender Jonathan Braun, whose 10-year prison sentence was commuted in 2021 by President Donald Trump, after a string of arrests over the past seven months.

Braun was arrested last weekend on Long Island on state charges of assaulting an acquaintance and that man’s three-year-old child, The New York Times revealed Tuesday.

Before that, he was arrested four other times on state charges, including for allegedly assaulting his wife and his 75-year-old father-in-law, groping a nanny’s breast, menacing health-care workers with an IV pole at a Long Island hospital, and petty larceny, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn.

Those arrests led the U.S. Probation Office to charge Braun with seven violations of his supervised release, which continued after his release from prison in 2021. The U.S. Attorney’s Office is prosecuting him.

Brooklyn U.S. District Court Judge Kiyo Matsumoto ordered Braun detained during an arraignment hearing Friday, ruling that he is a danger to the community and a flight risk. Braun pleaded not guilty at a hearing.

“The behavior is erratic,” Matsumoto said at the arraignment, The Times reported. “There’s the potential someone could really get hurt.”

Read more CNBC politics coverage

The judge scheduled a hearing on the violations for next Thursday.

Braun had served more than five years in federal prison for a conviction of conspiracy to import marijuana and commit money laundering when Trump commuted his criminal sentence on Jan. 20, 2021, hours before leaving the White House.

That act of executive clemency left Braun on supervised release in his federal criminal case.

The New York Times previously reported that Trump’s commutation thwarted an ongoing effort by prosecutors to negotiate a cooperation deal with Braun that would have freed him from prison in exchange for his offering information about other predatory lenders for a criminal investigation.

The Times also reported that Braun’s family used connections it had to the family of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who was a senior White House aide at the time, to set in motion the clemency.

Braun was fined $20 million in February 2024 by Manhattan federal court Judge Jed Rakoff in a civil case where the Federal Trade Commission had sued Braun for predatory lending practices.

“The evidence … shows that Mr. Braun not only personally participated in this illegal conduct, but did so gleefully, with little remorse,” Rakoff wrote in a ruling.



Source

Trump’s 0 million mystery donor is Mellon heir: NYT
Politics

Trump’s $130 million mystery donor is Mellon heir: NYT

Timothy Mellon, seen outside an inspection train during a property tour in 1981. Exact date and location unknown. AP Photo A mystery donor whose $130 million is meant to pay U.S. military during the government shutdown is Timothy Mellon, an heir to a renowned Gilded Age family, The New York Times reported Saturday, citing two […]

Read More
U.S., China seek to avoid trade war escalation, salvage Trump-Xi meeting in Malaysia talks
Politics

U.S., China seek to avoid trade war escalation, salvage Trump-Xi meeting in Malaysia talks

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media on the South Lawn of the White House before boarding Marine One in Washington, DC, US, on Friday, Oct. 24, 2025. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images Top economic officials from the U.S. and China kickstarted talks in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday to avert an […]

Read More
Chauncey Billups appears to be unnamed conspirator alleged to have leaked plan to lose NBA game
Politics

Chauncey Billups appears to be unnamed conspirator alleged to have leaked plan to lose NBA game

Portland Trailblazers head coach Chauncey Billups exits the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse after his arraignment on October 23, 2025 in Portland, Oregon. Mathieu Lewis-Rolland | Getty Images Portland Trail Blazers Head Coach Chauncey Billups appears to be an unnamed co-conspirator identified in a criminal indictment as telling another man the team planned to […]

Read More