Former US President and 2024 Republican Presidential hopeful Donald Trump speaks about weight lifting as he speaks at a Republican volunteer recruitment event at Fervent, a Calvary Chapel, in Las Vegas, Nevada, July 8, 2023.
Mario Correct | Getty Images
WASHINGTON — A New Jersey man jailed for running a massive Ponzi scheme that Donald Trump replaced on the final day of his presidency was charged Wednesday with orchestrating a similar scheme.
Eli Weinstein and four accomplices was accused of oversaw a new Ponzi scheme that prosecutors say defrauded 150 victims out of more than $35 million.
Weinstein has been charged three times with defrauding investors.
The first came in 2013, when he pleaded guilty to 45 counts of fraud and conspiracy for stealing more than $200 million from investors. In 2015, he pleaded guilty to a second charge, this time of committing wire fraud while on trial for a Ponzi scheme.
Weinstein had served eight years of his 24-year prison sentence when Trump granted him clemency in 2021, as one of 143 people who received either pardons or commutations during Trump’s final hours in office.
His release from prison culminated a costly lobbying effort that enlisted people close to Trump, including attorney Alan Dershowitz, to argue that Weinstein never got a fair trial.
The campaign to get Trump to grant Weinstein clemency later became a topic a New York Times storywhich detailed how Weinstein’s allies paid for access to various Trump insiders.
On the day of his commutation, the White House described Weinstein as “the father of seven children and a loving husband.”
“Upon his release, he will have strong support from his community and members of his faith,” said the official statement on his commutation.
At a press conference Wednesday announcing the latest charges, US Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said “Weinstein picked up right where he left off: stealing millions of dollars from investors through a web of lies and deception.”
According to criminal complaintWeinstein and his accomplices created fake investment funds and told prospective investors that their money would be used “to invest in profitable deals involving, among other things, COVID-19 masks, scarce baby formula, and first-aid kits for Ukraine.”
To hide his true identity and his criminal past, Weinstein used the name “Mike Konig” when communicating with investors.
In addition to the criminal charges Weinstein faces, the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday filed a civil complaint against him and five other alleged co-conspirators.
“Time and time again, the defendants took money from unsuspecting investors for bogus deals and shuffled the funds around to pay earlier investors to give the false impression that they were receiving real profits from those deals,” said Antonia Apps, director of the SEC’s New York Regional Office in a statement Wednesday.
