Former President Donald Trump speaks at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., June 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
A twice-convicted fraudster whose decades-long prison sentence was commuted by Donald Trump in the final days of his presidency is facing new federal criminal charges for allegedly bilking dozens of people out of millions of dollars — again.
Eliyahu Weinstein, 48, was named in a criminal complaint filed Wednesday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey. Prosecutors announced the charges in a press release, accusing Weinstein and four co-conspirators of plotting to defraud some 150 investors of more than $35 million and obstruct justice.
Weinstein had previously been convicted in two separate fraud schemes and sentenced to more than two decades in prison, but Trump commuted his sentence in the waning days of his administration.
“Since at least in or around December 2021, less than one year after the commutation of his sentence and release from prison, Weinstein was actively involved in operating Optimus in the shadows,” the criminal complaint says. Optimus Investments was a New Jersey entity “which purportedly financed the purchase and sale of medical supplies and other goods,” the complaint says.
According to the complaint, Optimus offered investors the opportunity to earn significant returns on the company’s purported investments in COVID-19 medical supplies, first-aid kits that would be delivered to USAID for delivery to the people of Ukraine under attack from Russia, and baby formula during a shortage caused by supply-chain issues.
Weinstein allegedly worked under the name “Mike Konig” to “actively [conceal his] role in purported investments.” Weinstein also allegedly hid his assets that should have been going toward the more than $200 million in restitution to his previous victims. He was allegedly a “silent partner” in the company, prosecutors say, but in reality, his co-defendants “took direction from Weinstein on business transactions, including where and when to move money.”
He also revealed his identity to two unnamed co-conspirators, identified in the complaint as CC-1 and CC-2, who allegedly continued to work with Weinstein after learning who he really was.
Weinstein’s co-defendants have been identified as Aryeh “Ari” Bromberg and Joel Wittels, both of Lakewood, New Jersey; Shlomo Erez, an Israeli lawyer who resides in Israel; and Alaa Hattab, a U.S. citizen residing in Canada. Weinstein, Bromberg, and Erez have all been arrested, but “Hattab and Wittels have not yet been apprehended and remain at large,” the DOJ’s announcement said.
Bromberg had allegedly acknowledged to Weinstein that they would not have been able to get investors if Weinstein’s identity had been known and that concealing his identity was “essential to obtaining investor money,” the complaint says.
During an Aug. 29 meeting with Erez, Wittels, Bromberg, and “CC-2,” Weinstein allegedly acknowledged that they had all agreed to conceal his identity.
“[CC-2] looked at me in the eyes, looked at us all in the eyes with [CC-1], before you were here Joel [Wittels] and Shlomo [Erez] . . . and we had a bond that so long as we try our best to be completely . . . . transparent, and ensure that no one gets hurt . . . then we will keep it [i.e., Weinstein’s identity] in the room,” Weinstein said, according to the complaint.
“I finagled, and Ponzied, and lied to people to cover us,” Weinstein allegedly said in an Aug. 31, 2022, meeting in which certain Optimus deals were discussed. Also, during that meeting, Weinstein allegedly admitted that he “misrepresented specific things” and “misled” and “lied about transactions,” according to the complaint. He also acknowledged that the first-aid kit deal didn’t happen.
“There’s another problem,” Weinstein allegedly said to Bromberg in that Aug. 31 meeting. “We collectively did not tell everyone who I was, no one would ever give you a penny if they knew who I was . . . because I have a bad reputation.”
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“Correct,” Bromberg allegedly replied.
The defendants also allegedly agreed to collectively conceal Weinstein’s activities from his probation officers, as his release conditions prohibited him from working in business dealings involving soliciting investors. Some of these conversations took place over text messages.
“You guys didn’t call his probation officer did you?” Hattab said to CC-2, according to the complaint.
“How would I know who that is,” CC-2 allegedly replied.
“He’s not allowed to do business, the mere fact that he did business would send him back to jail,” Hattab told the unnamed co-conspirator. “Nobody can know,” he added.
Weinstein had previously been convicted in two separate financial scams. In 2013, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with a real-estate scheme that resulted in losses of more than $224 million to investor victims, according to the government. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release and ordered to pay more than $224 million in restitution.
In 2014, he admitted again to conspiracy to commit wire fraud linked to an investment scheme he committed while on pretrial release for the 2013 charges. He was sentenced to 135 months in prison — running concurrently with the 22 years — plus three additional years of supervised release and ordered to pay $6.2 million in restitution.
After less than eight years, however, he received a reprieve: Trump commuted Weinstein’s sentence on or around Jan. 19, 2021.
A commutation is a form of executive clemency that either totally or partially reduces a sentence being served. It doesn’t reverse a conviction or imply innocence, nor does it remove “civil disabilities” resulting from the conviction, such as losing the right to own firearms and other consequences. Trump left intact the restitution amount Weinstein had been ordered to pay.
“As alleged in the complaint, Weinstein, along with four other individuals, has once again perpetrated a sophisticated fraud scheme causing losses of millions of dollars,” U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said in the DOJ announcement. “He did so by using a fake name and falsely promising access to deals involving scarce medical supplies, baby formula, and first-aid kits supposedly destined for wartime Ukraine. These were brazen and sophisticated crimes that involved multiple conspirators and drew right from Weinstein’s playbook of fraud.”
After his arrest on Wednesday, Weinstein was ordered to remain in federal custody, according to the federal docket.
Read the government’s complaint below.
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