- Staten Islander Jonathan Braun, 40, had served two-and-a-half years of his decade-long sentence for running an illegal marijuana cartel when he was freed
- A photograph of Braun and his wife Miriam with Trump at the former president’s Florida resort has surfaced and he is allegedly linked to Jared Kushner’s father
- The accused loan shark’s father – Jacob Braun – allegedly approached Jared Kushner’s father about the possibility of securing a pardon
A drug dealer who had his prison sentence commuted by Donald Trump has returned to loan sharking as his family’s ties to Jared Kushner might have helped get him free, according to a report.
Staten Islander Jonathan Braun, 40, had served two-and-a-half years of his decade-long sentence for running an illegal marijuana cartel when the former president set him free along with 142 others.
Since he has been free, Braun is accused of returning to offering high-interest loans despite nationwide bans on the practice, according to the New York Times.
Braun, along with his wife Miriam, was also photographed with Trump in April 2022 – a photo he says was a coincidence – as his family’s long political connections with the First Family are revealed.
Braun was in the inaugural class of the Kushner Yeshiva High School in Livingston, New Jersey, which was funded by the family of Ivanka Trump’s husband, Jared Kushner, according to the New York Times.
A source told the Times that in 2020, the accused loan shark’s father – Jacob Braun – approached Kushner’s father – Charles Kushner – about the possibility of securing a pardon from the then-president.
Others who dealt with Braun also told investigators his family helped secure his prison release through their connections with Trump’s senior advisor at the time, Jared Kushner, and his family, per the Times.
His eventual release from the NY Federal Correctional Facility Otisville came despite the New York AG having put out press releases about their civil actions against Braun in June 2020 while he was behind bars.
In September this year, it was revealed that just months after Trump freed him, Braun allegedly began preying on borrowers again by offering loans, according to New York’s Attorney General and the Times.
A New York judge barred Braun from working in the industry the same month, and weeks later, he was hit with a nationwide ban following a complaint from the Federal Trade Commission.
In October, the FTC announced a ban on Braun’s for lending.
‘Mr. Braun and his company targeted small business consumers with an egregious array of tactics, from predatory contract terms to violent threats, and the court’s opinion is a significant win on their behalf,’ Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection said in an October 2023 release. ‘This case makes clear that the FTC will fight back against those who prey on small businesses.
Now, he is banned from cash advances, debt collection and was required to remove negative credit information he filed.
During Trump’s final hours in the White House on January 20, 2021, it was announced Braun received a commutation among 142 more convicts who received pardons in the last batch.
‘Upon his release, Mr. Braun will seek employment to support his wife and children,’ the release said.
It came despite Braun being accused of violently threatening eight people who owed him money, saying he’d ‘destroy their businesses’ and ‘do violence to them and their families’, court documents seen by DailyMail.com reveal.
A real estate developer said Braun told him ‘I can literally make your life a living hell’ and ‘I will destroy you’ after he instructed his bank to suspend debits to Braun’s business account due to an unauthorized $10,000 debit.
He even told the entrepreneur: ‘I know where you live. I know where your mother lives. I will take your daughters from you’ and ‘you have no idea what I’m going to do’ according to legal documents.
‘Be thankful you’re not in New York, because your family would find you floating in the Hudson’, Braun told another business owner, per the documents, while he said to others ‘I will kill you’, ‘we know where you live’ and ‘I am going to make you bleed’.
A Texan firearms business owner said he felt so threatened by Braun’s behavior he started carrying a gun, which he’d never done before.
Another man even accused Braun in a lawsuit of shoving him from the deck of a house in Staten Island in 2018, according to the Times.
He was indicted in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York on drug trafficking conspiracy charges in May 2010.
The accused loan shark pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to import marijuana and money laundering in November 2011, and the court granted his release from custody on an $8 million bond, subject to a supervision order.
He was sentenced in May 2019 and the allegations of serving as a loan shark surfaced.
In a recent phone call, however, Braun downplayed his reported political connection. Braun said he didn’t know about the discussions that led to his commutation in a phone call with the Times.
‘I believe God made it happen for me because I’m a good person and I was treated unfairly,’ he said. Braun added that his friends had tried ‘multiple paths’ to try to free him from prison but he didn’t know which had succeeded.
He also denied any wrongdoing as a lender and had never met Jared Kushner. Braun added the April 2022 photograph of him and his wife on a golf course with Trump was not linked to his commutation but was a coincidental encounter.
‘I didn’t meet him because of what happened, I just happened to be there the same time,’ Braun told the Times.
DailyMail.com has contacted the press departments for Jared Kushner and Donald Trump for comment.
Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
