Washington– president Donald Trump He has issued a wave of pardons in recent days, including for the father of a major donor to his political action committee, a former governor of Puerto Rico and a woman whose sentence he commuted during his first term but who ended up back in prison for a different scheme.
Trump commuted Adriana Camberos’ sentence before his first term in the White House ended in 2021. This came after she was convicted as part of an effort to divert 5-Hour Energy Drink bottles that were obtained for resale in Mexico and instead keep them in the United States. Prosecutors said she and several co-conspirators affixed fake labels and filled the bottles with a phony liquid before selling them.
In 2024, she and her brother Andres were convicted in a separate case, relating to lying to manufacturers of selling wholesale groceries and ancillary items at deep discounts after promising they were intended for sale in Mexico or to prisoners or rehabilitation facilities. Prosecutors said the siblings sold the products at higher prices to American distributors.
The Camberoses were among 13 pardons issued by Trump on Thursday, along with eight commutations. An additional pardon was announced Friday for Terren Beiser, a resident of Puerto Rico and California who heads the Miami-based health care company Ontrak.
Beiser was convicted and sentenced to 42 months in prison, and fined $5.25 million, for participating in an insider trading scheme to avoid losses exceeding $12.5 million. According to the Ministry of Justice.
The president issued a number of clemency orders during the first year of his second term, many of them targeting criminal cases that federal prosecutors had once promoted. It came amid the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to undermine public integrity guardrails — incl Removal of the pardon lawyer from the Ministry of Justice.
The former governor of Puerto Rico was also pardoned this week. Wanda VasquezWho pleaded guilty last August Campaign finance violation In a federal case that authorities say also involves a former FBI agent and a Venezuelan banker. She was scheduled to be sentenced later this month.
Federal prosecutors were seeking a year in prison, something Vasquez’s lawyers opposed as they accused prosecutors of violating a plea agreement reached last year that saw previous charges including bribery and fraud dropped.
They noted that Vasquez agreed to plead guilty by accepting the promise of a campaign contribution that was never received.
Also involved in the case was banker Julio Herrera Vilotini, whose daughter Isabella Herrera donated $2.5 million to MAGA Inc. Trump’s super PAC in 2024, and gave the group an additional $1 million last summer. The third defendant in the case was former FBI agent Mark Rossini, who was also pardoned by the president.
The latest wave of clemency requests joins Trump’s previous pardon of the former Democratic governor of Illinois. Rod Blagojevich And the former Republican governor of Connecticut. John Rowlandwhose promising political career was upended by a corruption scandal and two stints in federal prison.
Trump also pardoned the former US Representative. Michael GrimmRepublican from New York He resigned from Congress after being convicted of tax fraud She made headlines for threatening to throw a reporter off a Capitol balcony over a question he didn’t like. Reality TV stars todd and julie chrisley, Which was He was convicted of bank fraud And tax evasion, and he also received Trump’s pardon.
The president also pardoned Texas Democratic Representative Henry Cuellar in a case Bribery and conspiracy case. He later expressed his regret and frustration for doing so, when Cuellar announced that he was seeking re-election without switching parties to become a Republican.