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Unshackling Ponzi Perps

It's a bad idea to let convicted swindlers go free. Biden just gave clemency to a slew of them

Al Lewis's avatar
Al Lewis
Jan 02, 2025
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“If there is something to pardon in everything, there is also something to condemn.” – Friedrich Nietzsche


Ponzi perp Eliyahu Weinstein received a 22-year prison sentence in 2014 for bilking investors out of more than $200 million.

He also received two more years for another fraud in which he claimed his company had an inside lock on Facebook's initial public stock offering.

He had served less than eight years in prison when President Donald Trump commuted his sentence on Jan. 19, 2021.

The next big Ponzi scheme may be only a clemency grant away. (Illustration: AI generated.)

So what’s Weinstein do with his new lease on life?

“He picked his Ponzi schemer’s playbook back up and allegedly started ripping off victims again,” according to U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger, who in February announced yet another indictment against Weinstein for yet another scam.

It’s no joke. Biden frees even more Ponzis

Not to be outdone, President Joe Biden recently gave clemency to at least five Ponzi schemers, according a count by ponzitracker.com. All told, these ripoff artists raised about $750 million from thousands of defrauded investors, the website notes.

“I can say first-hand that the harm inflicted on many of these victims was devastating and permanent,” writes Tampa, Fla., securities attorney Jordan Maglich.

In addition to running ponzitracker.com, Maglich has spent more than a decade representing court-appointed receivers tasked with recovering assets for Ponzi victims.

“Many lost everything and their lives were irreparably changed to their detriment and without any of their own fault,” he writes.


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But with enough influence, career white-collar criminals can run free to scheme again.

Who let the dogs out?

Ponzitracker.com notes that without any explanation, Biden commuted the sentences of:

  • Marc Dreier, Sentenced to 20 years in July 2009 for a $400 million Ponzi scheme.

  • Timothy McGinn – Sentenced to 15 years in August 2013 for a $130 million scam.

  • Brian Callahan – Sentenced to 12 years in September 2017 for a $96 million racket.

  • Gregory McKnight – Sentenced to 15 years in August 2013 a for a $72 million Ponzi grift.

  • Andrew Mackey – Sentenced to 27 years for a $12 million ripoff.

Biden has commuted more than 1,500 sentences, including that of former American Senior Communities CEO James Burkhart, who ran a $19 million fraud and Elaine Lovett, owner of a Detroit-area medical billing on company, who was convicted in 2017 for her role in a $26 million Medicare fraud.

Who can wait to see what all these white-collar wonders do next?


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