Jonathan Braun has repeatedly been in legal trouble since President Trump commuted his federal prison sentence more than four years ago as part of a rushed, last-minute process of granting clemency to allies and well-connected special pleaders before leaving office.
On Saturday, Mr. Braun, a major player in the predatory lending business, was arrested on Long Island on charges of assaulting an acquaintance and his 3-year-old child, according to court documents. It was the fourth time he has been arrested since Mr. Trump freed him.
Mr. Braun punched the man in the face and then shoved the child to the ground, “causing a red mark on his back and substantial pain” to the child’s back, the documents said. Mr. Braun was charged with assault, endangering the welfare of a child and injuring a child under the age of 7.
He was released on bail Monday. Robert Caliendo, a lawyer for Mr. Braun, did not respond to messages seeking comment.
In his final hours in office in early 2021, Mr. Trump commuted Mr. Braun’s 10-year sentence for running a marijuana smuggling ring. Mr. Braun’s family used a connection to Charles Kushner, the father of Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law who served as a senior White House adviser, to try to get the matter before Mr. Trump. Jared Kushner’s White House office drafted the language used to announce commutations for Mr. Braun and others.
Since then, Mr. Braun returned to predatory lending only to be banned from operating in that business by a New York State judge and a federal judge for engaging in deceptive practices. And he has been accused of a number of crimes: punching his wife and father-in-law in the head; grabbing a nanny’s breast while touching himself; trying to assault a female nurse with poles used to hold intravenous bags; and threatening a synagogue congregant who asked him to be quiet during services.
“Do you know who I am or what I can do to you?” Mr. Braun told the congregant, according to an affidavit the man signed.
Mr. Braun’s conduct has focused attention on how Mr. Trump has used his clemency powers in both his first and second terms to benefit people whose cases have often come to him apparently with little vetting. At least seven recipients of clemency from Mr. Trump during his first term have been charged with new crimes since then.
In his second term, Mr. Trump has dismissed the U.S. pardon attorney in the Justice Department and consolidated review of pardon applications in the White House, setting off a scramble from lawyers and lobbyists with connections to the administration to get the clemency applications of clients in front of Mr. Trump and his aides.
Mr. Braun’s repeated arrests also raise questions about the claims by Mr. Trump and his allies that he and his top political appointees in the Justice Department are uniquely positioned to stop violent crime and that his administration will stop at nothing to crack down on it.
But since taking office, it has become increasingly clear that there are certain types of violent crime Mr. Trump and his administration are more focused on — in particular, violence committed by immigrants, people in the country illegally and those who have destroyed Tesla cars, dealerships and charging stations.
While Mr. Trump has purged the upper ranks of the Justice Department and F.B.I. of people he sees as opponents or members of a “deep state” working against his agenda, he has used his clemency powers even more free willingly than he did in his first term. He has not only eschewed the Justice Department process for reviewing clemency applications but has given out pardons and commutations to supporters who stormed the Capitol and assaulted police officers defending the building.
His administration has also moved to restore gun rights to felons.
In response to questions about Mr. Braun’s case and the administration’s commitment to dealing with violent criminals, a spokesman for the White House attacked The New York Times but did not address Mr. Braun’s conduct or what it says about the president’s commitment to fighting violent crime.
Although Mr. Trump commuted his sentence, Mr. Braun is still on supervised release, a federal form of parole. Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto of federal court in Brooklyn originally sentenced him to 10 years in prison in 2019 for his role as a major marijuana dealer and is overseeing his supervised release. But despite the four arrests, she has not sent him back behind bars.
A clerk for Judge Matsumoto declined to comment and directed questions to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, which declined to comment.
Mr. Braun has a long history of violence dating to when he was a drug dealer and worked as a predatory lender to small businesses. He beat an underling with a belt and used the threats of violence against those to whom he had lent money and whom he contended had not paid him back fast enough, according to court documents, including a rabbi whom he told: “I am going to make you bleed.”
During Mr. Braun’s time behind bars in 2020, federal investigators began discussions with him about a deal in which he would be released from prison in exchange for agreeing to help the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan bring prosecutions against others in the merchant cash advance business, who were intimidating small businesses across the country.
As part of a potential deal, Mr. Braun was going to have to give up working in the merchant cash advance business.
But at the same time, Mr. Braun headed down a far different path: trying to convince Mr. Trump to give him a pardon or commutation. His lawyer thought the idea was a wild long shot given his violent history, but the commutation came through on Jan. 20, 2021, the final day of Mr. Trump’s first term.
The pardon dealt a devastating blow to the federal investigation into the merchant cash advance business, as prosecutors lost all their leverage over Mr. Braun. The commutation alarmed law enforcement officials and legal experts who questioned why Mr. Trump was bestowing clemency on someone who had such a documented history of violence.
Shortly after regaining his freedom, Mr. Braun returned to working in the merchant cash advance business. And he had repeated run-ins with law enforcement.
In August, he was arrested after being accused of punching his 75-year-old father-in-law and his wife in the head, according to the police.
Mr. Braun struck the father-in-law as he tried to protect his daughter from Mr. Braun, who was chasing after her while the couple had an argument in their home, the police said.
At the time, Mr. Braun’s wife said that twice over the previous five weeks Mr. Braun had assaulted her, including throwing her off a bed onto the floor, “causing her substantial pain and bruising her legs.”
He was also charged then with driving his white Lamborghini and black Ferrari without license plates and failing to pay $160 in tolls.
In late February, Mr. Braun was arrested and charged after a nanny who worked in his home accused him of coming into her room and touching her breasts while he touched himself. Then on March 26, he was arrested, accused of menacing a nurse who was treating him with the intravenous bag pole and threatening the congregant.
Sheelagh McNeill and Matthew Cullen contributed reporting.
