A convicted New York City drug kingpin whose sentence was commuted by President Trump in 2021 was hit with a new 27-month sentence Monday for a new wave of crimes — including sexually abusing his live-in nanny and menacing a hospital nurse.
Jonathan Braun, 42, of Long Island, who was sentenced in 2019 to 10 years for running a violent, $6 million-a-week pot trafficking operation, caught a break on the last day of Trump’s first term of office, when the president commuted his sentence but required he complete his supervised release.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn were asking he get the maximum five years for squandering that second chance in a string of law-breaking escapades.
Those crimes included putting his live-in nanny in a headlock, grabbing her breast and forcing her hand onto her genitals in February; menacing a nurse at Mount Sinai South Hospital in January by swinging an IV pole at her and threatening to “f—ing kill” her; menacing and grabbing the arm of a congregant of a synagogue in May; and repeatedly evading bridge tolls while driving a Lamborghini and Ferrari.
“This experience has left me with lasting issues,” the nanny said in a written statement read in court Monday. “I take comfort that through this process that I was able to prevent another nanny from going through what I went through.”
Braun was asking for time served, arguing that his behavior was fueled by mental illness and drug abuse, and that the seven months he’s already spent in the MDC Brooklyn federal jail has set him on the right path.
“I really just want another chance. I want the treatment that I’ve never taken advantage of in my life,” the Lawrence, N.Y. resident said Monday.
The victim in the synagogue incident, civil rights attorney Edward Miller, also pleaded for leniency. “My experience tells me there is nothing worse for an addict or a person with mental illness than to be in prison…. I have no doubt that prison would worsen Jonathan Braun’s condition,” he said.
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Braun’s sentence was commuted by President Trump in 2021. (Getty)
“The man got a pardon from the president of the United States and he went out and he blew it like this, that just makes me more furious,” Miller said. “I have to overcome my anger and focus on what is best for him.”
Brooklyn federal Court Judge Kiyo Matsumoto, who handed down Braun’s initial sentence in 2019, ultimately stuck with a sentence that fell within federal guidelines for someone with Braun’s history. After he’s done with his sentence, he must serve six months in a residential drug treatment program, followed by three months on home confinement, as part of his three-and-a-half years of probation.
Matsumoto urged him not to “squander” the opportunity.
“You are obviously well-loved by the people who know you. You have been forgiven by the people you have hurt,” she said.
As for Trump’s sentence commutation in 2021, she said, “Very few people are able to achieve this kind of privilege, your second chances.”
Braun’s criminal record dates back to 2010, when he was living on Staten Island and busted for running a massive pot smuggling ring that used aircraft, private jets and vehicles with hidden compartments that entered New York from Canada through the Akwesasne Native American reservation in upstate Franklin County.
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Jonathan Braun ran a drug ring from his Staten Island home. (New York Daily News)
As part of the scheme, he once whipped an associate in a California stash house in a belt and threatened his family if he didn’t recoup the amount of pot seized in a raid.
He pleaded guilty in 2011, but his sentencing was delayed until 2019. The New York Times reported that his sentence was pushed back as he agreed to help with an ongoing investigation.
The Times reported that Trump’s last-minute decision to commute Braun’s sentence, reportedly made possible through his family’s connections to Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, blew a hole in a federal probe into predatory lending in the merchant cash advance industry, since investigators no longer had the leverage of a prison term to secure his cooperation.
The Federal Trade Commission sued Braun in Manhattan Federal Court in June 2020, alleging he deceived small businesses and other organizations by misrepresenting the terms of the advances he provided, and sometimes threatened violence to make sure his clients paid up. That case ended with a more than $20 million judgment against Braun last year.
Braun also faced the possibility of charges last year in a domestic violence episode involving his wife, Miriam Hurwitz, though she didn’t pursue a case against him.
Hurwitz, who attended the sentencing, said she was satisfied with the judge’s ruling Monday.
“He’s been much healthier, I believe,” she told reporters..
