A cannabis kingpin with a penchant for using brute force was one of the 237 people who received clemency from former President Donald Trump and ultimately became a loan shark. Then, his sudden prison release hindered a federal predatory lending investigation.
According to The New York Times, Staten Island native Jonathan Braun, 40, was freed on Jan. 20, 2021, in concert with then-White House senior aide and son-in-law Jared Kushner, after serving just two-and-a-half years of a 10-year prison stint for smuggling and selling $1.72 billion worth of marijuana in the US from 2007 to 2010.
Commuting Braun's sentence reportedly impaired the Department of Justice's plans to get him to cooperate in a predatory lending industry investigation.
Trump granted 143 pardons and 94 commutations, a minute sum compared to other past presidents and one that falls behind only George W. and George H.W. Bush.
Braun bailed on the U.S. by managing to slip into a reservation where he was smuggled under the radar into Canada in 2009.
He then fled to Israel once a "stash house" was raided, according to The Times citing court records.
But it was while he was in "self-imposed exile" that he continued to lord over his drug cartel of sorts with an encrypted BlackBerry phone, according to Business Insider.
He later returned to the US and was indicted in 2010 on accusations of smuggling and selling $1.72 billion worth of marijuana in the US from 2007 to 2010.
Braun had a reputation as no-mess enforcer. The ganja honcho once pummeled a subordinate with a belt and threatened to "bleed" a Rabbi.
The boss ordered a younger associate in California to protect $100,000 worth of pot. When he learned that it was stolen, Braun insisted on payment. The young man refused.
So, Braun and a colleague flew to California, barged into his house, and Braun "proceeded to viciously whip his worker with the belt."
When the "kid" managed to slip away, Braun's minion pushed him back down on the bed so his boss could wail on him some more, causing his entire body to become "black and blue,'" according to Business Insider.
Braun relentlessly continued to recoup the debt by muscling the man's parents' house, and prosecutors say he ultimately secured the $100,000.
In another instance, prosecutors learned of an associate who threatened to alert law enforcement to Braun's illicit activities. When he learned of this, he sent a text to her which read: "[I]f you interfere with my life and make me uncomfortable you will leave me no choice but to do the same back to you in a much worse way."
