It wasn’t exactly a daring escape.
A New Jersey man, Eliyahu Weinstein, who had been convicted for running a pyramid scheme, is now facing fresh fraud charges after being pardoned during President Trump’s first term.
The 51-year-old from Lakewood, New Jersey, was pardoned in 2021 while serving a lengthy 24-year prison sentence—largely due to efforts by former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
After his release, a new judge, Michael Shipp, handed down a 37-year prison sentence and required him to pay around $44 million in restitution to his victims. This was due to a scheme he started shortly after his release.
Weinstein was found guilty in March of defrauding roughly 150 individuals out of $35 million. His scams claimed to involve medical and safety supplies intended for Ukraine, with prosecutors stating this fraudulent activity began as soon as he was out of prison.
He was apprehended for what officials described as a “brazen and sophisticated” scheme that fooled investors into buying COVID-19 supplies, including some pretty outrageous claims about “missing infant formula” meant to aid the war-impacted country.
According to the indictment, he engaged in this scheme alongside one co-defendant and five accomplices, presenting themselves as “silent partners” through a company called Optimus Investments.
Prosecutors referred to his actions as part of a “Ponzi-like fraud scheme” that misused funds from new investors to pay off older ones.
Interestingly, many of Weinstein’s previous victims were affluent investors from the Orthodox Jewish community, and he reportedly leveraged his previous experience as a yeshiva student to defraud them of $230 million in two earlier scams.
Despite his earlier claims of wanting to change his ways following his suspended sentence, Weinstein ended up resuming his fraudulent behavior, according to former New Jersey prosecutor Philip Selinger.
Some covert recordings made by his accomplices revealed Weinstein diverting funds from investors to play the Turkish stock market as part of the N95 mask scam, openly admitting, “I lied to people and put Ponzi money to cover my trade.”
He was also accused of showing investors fake documentation indicating that powdered milk was being shipped from Turkey to Newark.
To secure his release in 2021, he employed lobbyist Nick Moozin, who reached out to Meadows. Just a few days after getting out, Weinstein’s legal team reportedly received guidance from famed attorney Alan Dershowitz.
At the time of his pardon, he had already served seven years and eight months of his lengthy prison term.
