When President Donald J. Trump, in his final hours in the White House in early 2021, commuted a 10-year drug smuggling sentence being served by a New Yorker named Jonathan Braun, he made no mention of Mr. Braun's many other legal problems.
On Tuesday, a federal judge in New York imposed $20 million in fines on Mr. Braun after finding him liable for the accusations made by the trade commission. Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the Federal District Court in Manhattan excoriated Mr. Braun in the ruling, depicting him as a hardened, craven man who gleefully, with little remorse, boasted about his illegal conduct and treated it as a laughing matter as he threatened the business owners he gouged.
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