Staten Island drug dealer pardoned by Trump faces domestic violence charges

STATEN ISLAND, NY — A drug trafficker and loan shark with ties to Staten Island whose 10-year prison sentence was commuted to probation by then-President Donald Trump has found himself in trouble with the law again.

The defendant, 41-year-old Jonathan Braun, is accused of attacking his wife and her father on Long Island, according to court documents and multiple reports.

Police allege Braun attacked his 75-year-old father-in-law on Tuesday, punching him twice in the face. He is also accused of assaulting his wife twice.

According to a criminal complaint, he hit her several times on the head on August 12 after throwing her to the ground.

According to court records, Braun pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Wednesday to one count of second-degree assault on a person 65 years of age or older and two counts of third-degree assault.

He was also charged with grand theft.

He is reportedly accused of using a Lamborghini and a Ferrari, both of which had no license plates, to avoid paying $160 in tolls at around 40 bridge crossings.

He was released without bail after the Nassau County District Attorney's Office requested that bail be set at $35,000.

The court issued protective orders on behalf of the victims.

Braun's attorney, Marc Fernich, said in an email to CNBC: “Mr. Braun was arrested in Nassau County in connection with an alleged domestic altercation. He was released on bail after pleading not guilty and will face the charges in court.”

Grace granted

As one of his last acts as president, Trump commuted the sentence of Braun, who was serving a ten-year sentence in federal prison for running an international marijuana trafficking operation.

Braun, who lived in Meiers Corners at the time, was sentenced to prison and fined $100,000 for leading an operation that illegally imported more than 110 tons of cannabis from Canada through an Indian reservation on the New York border, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said at the time.

According to prosecutors, the retail value of the drugs was conservatively estimated at more than $1.7 billion.

At the time of his release, he had already spent five years in prison and, according to the White House, wanted to “find work to support his wife and children.”

He was one of 70 people whose sentences Trump reduced before leaving the White House. Trump also pardoned 73 other people.

Marc Fernich, who represented Braun at the time, told the New York Times at the time that Trump had the “courage to right a grave wrong.”

“The 10-year prison sentence imposed on Mr. Braun was completely inappropriate given the facts and circumstances of his case – an extreme statistical outlier,” Fernich said.

Usury loans

According to court documents, Braun was fined $20 million in February by Judge Jed Rakoff of federal court in Manhattan in a civil case in which the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued him for usurious lending practices.

“The evidence … shows that Mr. Braun not only personally participated in this illegal conduct, but did so with glee and little remorse,” Rakoff wrote in his ruling, citing emails Braun sent about the loans.