Trump's pardons wipe out payments to defrauded victims [View all]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/12/19/donald-trump-pardons-trevor-milton-nikola/

Trump’s pardons wipe out payments to defrauded victims
In addition to clearing prison sentences, the president’s clemency actions have erased millions in restitution payments.
December 19, 2025 at 6:00 a.m. EST
By Beth Reinhard and Aaron Schaffer

By the time a federal judge in 2023 sentenced convicted fraudster Trevor Milton to four years in prison, Salt Lake City businessman Liejo Supoto had long given up hope of recovering the more than $100,000 he had invested in Milton’s hydrogen-powered truck company.

Supoto didn’t know that a federal law requires certain criminal offenders to pay what’s called restitution to compensate their victims for losses. In Milton’s case, prosecutors argued that the former CEO of Nikola should pay investors $660 million.

But before a judge had the chance to calculate and order restitution, President Donald Trump pardoned Milton — which in addition to sparing him any time behind bars, wiped away any financial penalties.

At least 20 people who have received clemency from Trump so far this year — cutting their sentence short, restoring their civil rights after imprisonment or allowing them to avoid prison altogether — were also forgiven of financial penalties totaling tens of millions of dollars. Some of these offenders owed money to real-life victims of fraud. Marian Morgan, for example, was sentenced in 2013 to nearly 34 years in prison for running a Ponzi scheme and was ordered to pay $17.5 million to dozens of investors, most of which remains unpaid. In 2021, she filed a statement in court saying, “I want to pay restitution to my victims so they know I am truly sorry for the damage I caused.” But in May, Trump commuted her sentence “to time served with no further fines, restitution, probation or other conditions.”

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