Trump clemency recipient Jonathan Braun arrested for assault

A convicted New York drug dealer and predatory lender who walked free from a 10-year federal prison sentence after it was commuted in 2021 by then-President Donald Trump has been arrested on assault charges, court records show.

Jonathan Braun was accused in court filings in Nassau County, Long Island, of assaulting his 75-year-old father-in-law on Tuesday, as he was trying to protect his daughter from Braun. Separately, Braun was also accused of assaulting that woman, his wife, last month and again last week, The New York Times reported.

Court records show Braun pleaded not guilty during his arraignment Wednesday to three counts of assault and was released on those charges without bail.

He was also accused in Nassau County District Court of petit larceny, which the Times reported is related to allegations he failed to pay $160 in bridge tolls while driving a Lamborghini and Ferrari, both of which lack license plates.

Braun was fined $20 million in February 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, which cited emails Braun had sent about the loans.

CNBC has requested comment from Braun’s lawyer, Marc Fernich.

Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the now-Republican presidential nominee Trump, in a statement about Braun’s arrest, said, “President Trump wants criminals to spend time behind bars unlike Kamala Harris who wants to end cash bail.”

Vice President Harris is the Democratic presidential nominee.

Braun had served more than five years of his prison sentence for conspiracy to import marijuana and commit money laundering when Trump granted him clemency on Jan. 20, 2021, hours before leaving the White House.

He remains on supervised release for his criminal conviction, which means he potentially could be sent back to federal prison if a judge finds he violated the conditions of his release.

The Times reported last fall 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 has 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 he received from the then-president.