Trump Pardons Hudson Valley Fraudster

ROCKLAND COUNTY, NY — Among the 143 people to whom President Donald Trump granted some form of clemency on his last night in office is former Monsey resident Sholam Weiss.

Weiss helped destroy the National Heritage Life Insurance Co. in the 1990s in a $450 million fraud scheme. He was convicted of racketeering, wire fraud, money laundering, and obstruction of justice and given an 835-year sentence, possibly the longest sentence for white-collar crime in U.S. history.

Weiss, who is at Otisville federal prison, has been incarcerated for 18 years. He paid $125 million in restitution. He is 66 and suffers from chronic health conditions.

His commutation was supported by former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese, former Solicitors General Ken Starr and Seth Waxman, former United States Representative Bob Barr, numerous members of the New York legislature, notable legal figures such as Professor Alan Dershowitz and Jay Sekulow, former U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman, and various other former elected officials, the Associated Press reported.

The last-minute clemency, announced after midnight on Wednesday, follows separate waves of pardons over the past month.

Leading Wednesday's list, Trump pardoned former chief strategist Steve Bannon. The final list was also full of more conventional candidates whose cases had been championed by criminal justice activists. Still, the names of prominent Trump allies nonetheless stood out, the AP reported.

One pardon recipient was Elliott Broidy, a prominent Republican fundraiser who pleaded guilty last fall in a scheme to lobby the Trump administration to drop an investigation into the looting of a Malaysian wealth fund. Another was Ken Kurson, a friend of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner who was charged last October with cyberstalking during a heated divorce.

Bannon’s pardon was especially notable given that the prosecution was still in its early stages and any trial was months away. Bannon was charged in August with duping thousands of donors who believed their money would be used to fulfill Trump’s chief campaign promise to build a wall along the southern border. Instead, he allegedly diverted over a million dollars, paying a salary to one campaign official and personal expenses for himself. His co-defendants were not pardoned, the AP said.

Weiss's first name was misspelled in the White House statement, The Journal News reported.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.