A Florida man who received a commutation of a 20-year fraud sentence from President Donald J. Trump in 2020 — only to plead guilty this year to a related crime — was arrested on Sunday on domestic violence-related charges in South Florida.
The man, Philip Esformes, was charged with two felony counts that could result in jail time and fines if he were convicted, according to a public records database maintained by Miami-Dade County.
Mr. Esformes is at least the seventh person granted clemency by Mr. Trump who has been charged with new crimes after receiving a second chance, according to a New York Times analysis.
Mr. Esformes is also the third known recipient of a clemency grant from Mr. Trump to be charged with a domestic violence-related offense.
Late on Saturday, Mr. Esformes verbally threatened a woman whom her relatives described as his wife, as well as a second family member, and further intimidated them by breaking items on a table filled with glassware, according to the woman’s relatives.
Mr. Esformes pushed the table toward one of the family members, according to the relatives, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect the family.
Mr. Esformes tried to prevent the woman from calling the police by smashing her cellphone, the relatives said. The woman ran out of the house and called for help, they said. No one appears to have been injured in the incident.
Records accessible on the website of the Miami-Dade County Corrections and Rehabilitation Department show that he was booked in the early morning on Sunday — his 56th birthday — on charges of tampering with a victim or witness and criminal mischief involving property damage of $1,000 or more. The website indicates that the two charges relate to domestic violence but provides no other details.
Corrections officials in Miami-Dade County indicated that he was still in custody on Monday morning.
Mr. Esformes owned more than 30 Miami-area nursing homes and assisted-living centers in 2016, when he was charged in connection with a two-decade scheme that involved an estimated $1.3 billion worth of fraudulent claims to Medicare and Medicaid. The Justice Department called it the largest health care fraud scheme ever charged. He was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2019.
His prison term ended suddenly in December 2020 — when Mr. Trump, during his final days in office, commuted what remained of Mr. Esformes’s sentence. In a statement announcing the commutation, the White House claimed that in prison, Mr. Esformes had been “in declining health” and “had been devoted to prayer and repentance.”
His path to a commutation was emblematic of the unusual way Mr. Trump administered executive clemency, which is among the most unilateral, unchecked powers of the Oval Office. Mr. Trump largely bypassed a Justice Department system set up to identify and vet worthy recipients of commutations, which reduce or eliminate prison sentences, and pardons, which wipe conviction records.
Instead, Mr. Trump relied on recommendations from a relatively small circle of allies and supporters.
Mr. Esformes’s commutation was not recommended by the Justice Department. It was supported by influential figures and groups in Mr. Trump’s world, including a Jewish nonprofit group called the Aleph Institute that advances prisoners’ rights. The group worked with the White House and Trump allies on clemency and legislation that overhauled sentencing laws. A lawyer who worked with the Aleph Institute lobbied the White House to grant clemency to Mr. Esformes, enlisting help from conservative legal luminaries including two former U.S. attorneys general, Edwin Meese and Michael Mukasey, according to The Washington Post.
The Aleph Institute also worked with the famed defense lawyer Alan M. Dershowitz, who said he had recommended that the group pursue clemency for Mr. Esformes.
Mr. Dershowitz supported commutations for two other recipients who have faced new charges — Jonathan Braun, who pleaded not guilty in August to assaulting his wife and punching his 75-year-old father-in-law in the head; and Eliyahu Weinstein, who is set to stand trial next month on charges that he bilked dozens of associates out of $35 million.
Mr. Dershowitz said in an interview on Monday that he did not regret his clemency advocacy under Mr. Trump. While he conceded that the process under Mr. Trump “was probably too personal” and “a little too permissive,” he said the Justice Department’s process “seems like it was a little too impermissive.”
Generally, he said, “when you’re dealing with people who have committed crimes, you are going to get some recidivism, but the focus shouldn’t be only on those who have failed or those who have recidivated.” Mr. Dershowitz added: “Many of the commutations that he gave turned out wonderfully. People went back to their lives, went back to their families and contributed to their communities.”
The Aleph Institute did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Esformes’s family donated tens of thousands of dollars to the group over several years starting after his indictment, the institute previously told The Times, asserting that the donations had nothing to do with its support for clemency. The group subsequently told The Post that it had refunded the donations to Mr. Esformes’s family.
Months after the commutation, prosecutors moved to retry Mr. Esformes on six counts from his initial indictment on which the jury had deadlocked. Mr. Esformes’s representatives claimed that the unusual move was retribution from President Biden’s Justice Department to reverse the effect of Mr. Trump’s clemency grants — complaints that were embraced by influential Trump supporters and others.
Prosecutors argued that the commutation did not affect the six counts.
Mr. Esformes pleaded guilty in February to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud to avoid another trial. The Justice Department agreed to drop the remaining counts. He was credited for time already served and given no additional prison time.
Paul E. Pelletier, a former federal prosecutor from Florida who worked on Medicare fraud among medical clinics, said that he remained disappointed that Mr. Esformes’s criminal sentence was commuted and that he was not surprised to see that he was facing new charges.
