Health care crook Philip Esformes is the latest recipient of Trump’s pardon to be arrested

Philip Esformes, whose 20-year prison sentence for a massive $1.3 billion Medicare fraud scheme was commuted in 2020 by then-President Donald Trump, was arrested over the weekend in Florida on the charges related to domestic violence.

Esformes is at least the seventh person to receive a pardon from Trump, and has since been charged with new crimes, according to The New York Times, which first reported this recent arrest.

In August, convicted New York drug dealer and loan shark Jonathan Braun, whose 10-year prison sentence Trump commuted to 2021, was charged with beating his father-in-law and his wife on different occasions.

Court records show that Esformes was arrested on Saturday and charged with tampering with a victim or witness, and misdemeanor criminal damage to property.

He was booked into the Miami-Dade County Jail on Sunday, his 56th birthday.

Esformes was released Monday after posting two separate $1,650 bonds, according to a jail spokeswoman.

A lawyer for Esformes did not immediately comment on the arrest.

CNBC requested comment from a spokesperson for Trump’s presidential campaign.

CNBC also reached out to the attorney for Esformes’ ex-wife, Sherri Beth Esformes, whose divorce was finalized in July 2020.

Sherri Beth Esformes filed a plea in her ex-husband’s health fraud lawsuit in August, asserting a 50% ownership interest in a number of companies and assets that Philip Esformes believed to be paid to settle a $38.7 million forfeiture judgment in that case.

Sherri Beth’s attorney wrote that her legal right to the property trumps the US government’s interest in the property, and that it makes the seizure order invalid.

The filing states that by not including Sherri Beth as the owner of record of the property, her ex-husband “acquired this property in violation of Ms. Esformes’ trust and by fraudulent or illegal means.”

On Tuesday, a judge in federal court in Miami set a Nov. 4 deadline. Philip Esformes to answer the request of his ex-wife.

Philip Esformes, who owned nursing homes in Florida, was convicted in 2019 of 20 felony counts related to what the Justice Department said at the time was a massive scheme to the worst health care fraud ever prosecuted by the agency.

The DOJ said that Esformes and her colleagues for more than two decades directed Medicare and Medicaid patients through a network of nursing homes and assisted living facilities even though they did not qualify for such care.

Trump commuted Esformes’ prison sentence to the end of 2020, prompting his immediate release from custody.

The White House, in announcing the amendment, said at the time, “This amendment is supported by former attorneys general Edwin Meese and Michael Mukasey, as well as former Deputy Assistant Secretary Larry Thompson.”

“Additionally, former attorneys general Edwin Meese, John Ashcroft, and Alberto Gonzalez, along with other prominent legal figures such as Ken Starr, have filed to support his appeal challenging his conviction due to prosecutorial misconduct involving violation of consumer rights.”

“While in prison, Mr. Esformes, 52 years old, has devoted himself to prayer and penitence and is declining,” the White House added.

But the DOJ retried Esforms on six criminal charges that the jury in his first trial had just finished.

Esformes fought the effort for several years, but last February he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud. He was sentenced to serve time.

The New York Times in September described how six other convicted felons, including Braun, were arrested after receiving pardons from Trump. A pardon can be a pardon, which cancels a person’s criminal conviction, or a commutation, which ends any prison or jail sentence.

Beneficiaries described in the article included former White House adviser Steve Bannon, rapper Kodak Black, investment banker Eliyahu Weinstein, thief Jamie Davidson, and counterfeiter Adriana Camberos.