Trump Pardons: Lobbyist Charged in Extortion Attempt

Josh Nass had recently represented Joseph Schwartz, a former nursing home executive who was convicted of tax crimes before being freed by the president late last year.

Josh Nass, a conservative lawyer and lobbyist, appeared in federal court in Brooklyn on Saturday to face accusations of attempted extortion that appeared related to a client who was pardoned by President Trump.

Joseph Nocella Jr., the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, accused Mr. Nass of having “plotted the violent extortion of one of his own clients” in a statement issued Saturday morning.

Mr. Nass had been paid $100,000 by the client but was owed an additional $500,000, according to court filings in the case unsealed on Saturday.

The filings accuse Mr. Nass of instructing a person he hired to “do anything and everything” to collect the outstanding funds from the client’s son, explaining “they are gonna end up paying me every penny of what they owe.”

The filings strongly suggest that the targets of Mr. Nass’s threats were Joseph Schwartz and one of his sons. Mr. Nass had been retained late last year to help seek a pardon for Mr. Schwartz, who had been convicted of tax crimes related to a nursing-home empire that had collapsed amid allegations of endangering the residents and defrauding his employees. Neither Mr. Schwartz nor his son was named in the court filings.

Mr. Nass, 34, had been arrested by F.B.I. agents in Midtown Manhattan on Friday afternoon.

He appeared before a U.S. magistrate judge Saturday afternoon in Brooklyn and was released on a $5 million bond signed by his mother, father and uncle.

Wearing a blue blazer over a purple button-down shirt, he blew a kiss to his mother, Nadia Kiderman, as he entered the courtroom, accompanied by a U.S. marshal. He smiled and nodded throughout the proceedings, as Judge Clay H. Kaminsky informed him of his rights.

“I’m very proud of him,” Ms. Kiderman said to the judge before she signed the bond. Mr. Nass’s lawyer, Zach Intrater, declined to comment to reporters after his client was released.

Mr. Nass’s efforts to secure clemency for Mr. Schwartz were detailed in an article this month in The New York Times.

The case against Mr. Nass highlights a shadowy corner of the growing clemency lobbying industry that has emerged around Mr. Trump.

Instead of relying on a Justice Department system for identifying and vetting worthy clemency recipients, Mr. Trump has often granted pardons and commutations to allies or people who hire them to advance their petitions. That has created a demand for pardon brokers with connections in Mr. Trump’s orbit who charge as much as $1 million or more to people facing charges or jail time.

On social media, Mr. Nass has posted photographs of himself with Donald Trump Jr. at Mar-a-Lago and with Mike Huckabee, who is now the U.S. ambassador to Israel, in New York and in the Israeli city of Bnei Brak, an ultra-Orthodox enclave. In 2021, Mr. Nass reportedly paid $1.8 million in cash for an apartment in Manhattan’s Trump Tower.

But the court filings paint a portrait of Mr. Nass as someone who straddles the world of Washington lobbyists in tailored suits and a rougher one where convicted felons are paid to inflict physical violence.

The filings claim that the person Mr. Nass hired to pursue the $500,000 from the Schwartzes had previously been convicted of racketeering and sentenced to nearly four years in prison, then possessed a firearm as a convicted felon. The person, who is not named in the filings, communicated with Mr. Nass in both Russian and English, and recorded conversations at the direction of law enforcement, according to the filings. They indicate that he is cooperating with law enforcement “in the hopes of being offered a cooperation agreement and possible immigration benefits.”

According to the filings, Mr. Nass paid the individual $3,000 in cash and promised thousands more. The two discussed having the individual assault Mr. Schwartz’s son or force him “into a car with masked men.”

Mr. Nass could not be reached for comment. One of his lawyers, Marc Agnifilo, said he would comment after reviewing the charges. Mr. Schwartz did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Schwartz had pleaded guilty in 2024 to tax crimes in federal and Arkansas courts related to his failure to pay nearly $40 million in employment and payroll taxes, as well as to a state Medicaid fraud charge in Arkansas. He was sentenced to three years in federal prison.

He retained several lobbyists and lawyers last year to push for clemency from Mr. Trump.

Mr. Schwartz reported to prison in August, but he was pardoned and freed by Mr. Trump in November.

The White House has denied that Mr. Trump’s clemency decisions are shaped by lobbyists.

Shortly after Mr. Schwartz’s release, he and one of his sons took Mr. Nass to dinner to thank him for his assistance, according to a person familiar with the episode. It appears to be the same son whom Mr. Nass is accused of attempting to extort.

Mr. Schwartz also attended the White House Hanukkah party.

Mr. Schwartz subsequently reported to state prison in Arkansas. He was released on parole in January after only two and a half weeks by a board appointed by the governor. Mr. Nass had reached out to Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas and her father, Ambassador Huckabee. The offices for both issued statements to The Times saying that they had not intervened on behalf of Mr. Schwartz. The board said that it had acted independently.

In disclosure filings in December and January, Mr. Nass reported that he began lobbying for Mr. Schwartz in November, the day before the pardon was signed.

The filings indicate that Mr. Nass was paid $100,000 between his hiring and the end of the year to lobby Congress, the Justice Department and the State Department about “executive clemency and post-conviction relief, including federal presidential pardon advocacy and subsequent efforts to obtain expedited parole and state-level relief in Arkansas.”

The favorable resolution for Mr. Schwartz had seemed to bode well for Mr. Nass’s business.

After Mr. Schwartz’s release from the minimum security prison camp in Otisville, N.Y., a handful of the inmates with whom he had served time reached out indirectly to Mr. Nass seeking assistance. Several had discussed offering to pay $500,000 each, with additional $1 million success fees if they secured pardons, though Mr. Nass declined to represent any of them, according to a person familiar with the offers.

When Mr. Nass was arrested on Friday in Midtown Manhattan, he was leaving a meeting at a hotel about securing business from other clemency seekers, an associate of Mr. Nass said.

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