Paul Walczak, a Florida nursing home and healthcare industry CEO, has been pardoned by President Donald Trump for employment tax crimes.
The April 23 pardon came less than three weeks after Mr. Walczak’s mother, Elizabeth Fago, attended a $1 million-per-person fundraising dinner, according to a May 27 report from the The New York Times.
Initially charged in February 2023 with 13 counts of tax crimes, Mr. Walczak pleaded guilty to two counts on Nov. 15, the Times report said.
A judge on April 11 sentenced Mr. Walczak to 18 months in prison and two years of supervised release for failing to pay employment taxes and file individual income tax returns. He was also ordered to pay $4,381,265.76 in restitution to the U.S.
His pardon application, which was described to the Times “by a person who received it” but not shared, was filed “around” Inauguration Day, according to the report.
Mr. Walczak’s application cited his mother’s political fundraising efforts for Mr. Trump’s campaigns. It also cited Ms. Fago’s connection to negotiations surrounding the sale of the diary of Ashley Biden, daughter of former President Joe Biden, as the motivation behind Mr. Walczak’s prosecution.
Mr. Trump also appointed Ms. Fago to the National Cancer Advisory Board in the last weeks of his first presidential term, a move the Biden administration then rescinded. A White House official told the Times that the rescindment was “evidence of the political motivations that contributed to Mr. Trump’s decision to issue the pardon.”
Read the full Times report here.
