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Trump Sets Fraudster Free From Prison for a Second Time
The president issued a raft of clemency grants this week, including pardoning a woman he had given relief to once before and a man whose daughter had donated millions to a Trump super PAC.In 2021, a convicted fraudster named Adriana Camberos was freed from prison when President Trump commuted her sentence.
Rather than taking advantage of that second chance, prosecutors said, Ms. Camberos returned to crime. She and her brother were convicted in 2024 in an unrelated fraud.
This week, Mr. Trump pardoned both siblings, marking the second time he had opened the prison gates for Ms. Camberos.
Their pardons were among a handful of clemency grants quietly issued by Mr. Trump on Thursday and Friday.
Among the other lucky recipients: a man whose daughter had given millions to a Trump-backed super PAC, a former governor of Puerto Rico and a former F.B.I. agent — all of whom had pleaded guilty in a political corruption case.
The pardons, most of which have not been previously reported, were supported by people with close ties to Mr. Trump’s orbit, including lawyers who had worked for him.
They continue a trend in which Mr. Trump has used the unfettered presidential clemency power to reward allies and those who have paid his associates or donated to his political operation. The approach stands in contrast to Justice Department guidelines that prioritize the clemency applications of people who have completed their prison sentences or demonstrated remorse and a lower likelihood of recidivism.
The pardons, several of which forgave white-collar crimes and frauds by affluent perpetrators, strike a discordant note with the Trump administration’s announcement that it was suspending federal funding for programs intended to serve poor people in Minnesota in order to root out fraud.
A White House official justified the clemency grants in a statement as rectifying excessive sentences or prosecutions that were politically motivated to target Trump supporters. The official, who was not authorized to discuss the clemency grants on the record, suggested that Mr. Trump made the clemency decisions based on the merits, not whether the recipients had political connections or had made donations to groups he supports.
Three of the recipients were scheduled to be sentenced this month in a political corruption case related to accusations that former Gov. Wanda Vázquez of Puerto Rico had accepted bribes from Julio Herrera Velutini, a Venezuelan-Italian banker, in 2020.
In late 2024, while Mr. Herrera was facing felony bribery and other charges in the case, his daughter, Isabela Herrera, donated $2.5 million to MAGA Inc., a super PAC devoted to Mr. Trump and run by his allies.
In May, her father’s lawyer, Christopher M. Kise, who had served on Mr. Trump’s legal defense team, negotiated an unusually lenient deal with the Justice Department. Under the deal, which was authorized by a top Trump appointee, Mr. Herrera agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor campaign finance charge, disappointing career prosecutors who had pushed for a harsher sentence.
In July, Ms. Herrera donated another $1 million to MAGA Inc. She did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Trump this week pardoned Mr. Herrera, Ms. Vázquez and Mark Rossini, a former F.B.I. agent who had worked as a consultant for Mr. Herrera. All three had pleaded guilty in August to misdemeanor campaign finance charges.
The White House official denied that Ms. Herrera’s donations had played any role in her father’s pardon. Instead, the official suggested that pardon and the others related to the Puerto Rico case were motivated by a belief that the investigation into the matter was retribution for Ms. Vázquez’s endorsement of Mr. Trump in 2020.
Mr. Herrera “is profoundly grateful” to Mr. Trump, Mr. Kise said in a statement.
Lawyers for Ms. Vázquez and Mr. Rossini did not respond to requests for comment.
As for Ms. Camberos, she was among a number of people granted clemency by Mr. Trump who have been charged with new crimes after receiving a second chance.
Ms. Camberos began serving a 26-month prison sentence in December 2019 for her role in a scheme to sell millions of counterfeit bottles of the caffeinated drink 5-Hour Energy. Mr. Trump commuted her sentence in the final days of his first term after she enlisted two lawyers with connections in his orbit. One of them, Stefan C. Passantino, had been a deputy White House counsel in the first Trump administration. Another, Adam Katz, represented Rudolph W. Giuliani in a defamation case related to his effort to overturn Mr. Trump’s loss in the 2020 election.
But soon after her release from prison, she and her brother Andres embarked on a new fraud, federal prosecutors in California said. The siblings were charged in 2023 in a complicated scheme: They bought consumer goods from manufacturers at a steep discount, purportedly to sell them in Mexico — a legal practice. Instead, prosecutors said, the siblings sold the goods in the United States at higher prices and then committed bank and mail fraud to cover their tracks.
They were convicted in 2024. In April, Ms. Camberos was sentenced to more than one year in prison — 12 months for the new conviction and additional months for violating her probation on her earlier conviction — and Andres Camberos was given one year of home confinement. Ms. Camberos had begun serving her sentence.
They were ordered to pay millions of dollars in restitution to the companies they defrauded.
The White House official did not respond to a question about whether the pardon would wipe away the Camberos siblings’ restitution payments, but pardons typically erase financial penalties.
The siblings’ supporters had argued privately that they were targeted by prosecutors because Mr. Trump had wiped away Ms. Camberos’s sentence from her earlier conviction — a claim echoed by the White House official.
Mr. Passantino and Mr. Katz had worked to secure pardons for the siblings, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.
The two lawyers did not respond to requests for comment. Marcus Bourassa, another lawyer for Ms. Camberos, said in a statement that his client was wrongfully convicted and is grateful to the President and others for their support.
Mr. Katz also had supported clemency for Terren S. Peizer, a former business executive who had been convicted in 2024 of insider trading and sentenced last year to 42 months in prison. Mr. Peizer was also ordered to pay a fine of $5.25 million and forfeit more than $12.7 million. He was pardoned on Friday by Mr. Trump.
David Willingham, a lawyer for Mr. Peizer, said in a statement that the case was a “massive overreach” by the government.
Another statement issued on behalf of Mr. Peizer himself said that “there aren’t enough words to express the gratitude and appreciation I have for the compassion and recognition of this unfair process by the most accomplished president of my lifetime, and perhaps beyond.”
The White House official said that Mr. Peizer’s case was an example of excessive prosecution and that he had properly disclosed the trades.
Another finance executive who received a pardon, David Levy, was convicted by a jury in 2019 for his role in a scheme to defraud bondholders while he was the co-chief investment officer of a New York hedge fund. In a statement issued after the conviction, a federal official who oversaw part of the investigation called the verdict “a warning for all the fraudsters out there: No matter how slick you think you are, liars, frauds and cheats never win.”
On Thursday, Mr. Trump also signed eight commutations, which cut short sentences but do not necessarily wipe away other penalties related to convictions.
Most went to people convicted of drug offenses, including James P. Womack, the son of Representative Steve Womack, an Arkansas Republican who is a Trump ally.
The younger Mr. Womack had pleaded guilty in 2023 to distributing methamphetamine, and was sentenced to eight years in prison.
His father, who in November cited a family member’s serious medical issue, thanked Mr. Trump in a statement on Friday “for this gracious and thoughtful action.” The commutation, Mr. Womack said, “has allowed my son to be with his family during a profoundly difficult time.”
Another commutation went to Jacob Deutsch, who had been sentenced to 62 months in prison in 2024 for his role in a mortgage fraud scheme.
His clemency grant was supported by the Tzedek Association, a Jewish group that was influential in shaping Mr. Trump’s clemency grants and criminal justice policies during his first term.
The group, which posted an apparent copy of the signed commutation on social media, contended that the sentence was too harsh and thanked Mr. Trump for affirming mercy “as a cornerstone of American justice.”
Trump Sets Fraudster Free From Prison for a Second Time
The president issued a raft of clemency grants this week, including pardoning a woman he had given relief to once before and a man whose daughter had donated millions to a Trump super PAC.
