Prosecutors seek 5 years for assault for Jonathan Braun, of Lawrence, whose drug sentence Trump commuted

Brooklyn federal prosecutors are asking a federal judge to sentence Jonathan Braun, the Lawrence man whose 10-year drug and money laundering conviction was commuted in 2021 by President Donald Trump, to five years behind bars for a series of physical and sexual assaults over the last two years.

U.S. District Court Judge Kiyo Matsumoto ruled in September that prosecutors had proved six charges by federal probation officials that Braun had violated the terms of his post-release supervision agreement.

Most severely, Braun, 41, who has been imprisoned in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center awaiting his punishment, was accused of entering the bedroom of his children’s live-in nanny on Feb. 14, grabbing her breast and making unwanted sexual advances toward her, including placing her hand on his private parts, the woman testified.

She said he put her in a headlock on the bed and tightened his grip on her neck when she rebuffed him. The nanny excused herself to the bathroom, where she hid and had her husband call the police, she told the court.

He also threatened the head emergency room nurse at Mount Sinai South Nassau in January and swung a pole at her while he was waiting to see a doctor about a gallstone issue, according to court testimony.

The nurse testified during a hearing that Braun repeatedly threatened to kill her during his emergency room wait.

On March 22, he grabbed a congregant in a Lawrence synagogue by the arm after the man shushed him during the service, the man told the court.

Braun referenced the “angel of death” in Hebrew and then screamed, “Do you know who I am?” and “Do you know what I could have done to you?” according to testimony.

Braun racked up hundreds of dollars in unpaid tolls driving through the Atlantic Beach Toll plaza in his Lamborghini and Ferrari without license tags, Raymond Webb, the executive director of the Nassau County Bridge Authority, said in court. He said his team recorded at least 75 instances of toll evasion by Braun.

Braun was sentenced in 2019 to a decade behind bars for running an intricate marijuana smuggling operation from Canada to Staten Island using boats and airplanes.

At the time, he was also fined $100,000, of which the judge found he had only paid $22,800, despite “employing a butler, gambling with over $25,000 in cash, living in a multimillion-dollar property, and driving luxury vehicles,” prosecutors said.

Under the terms of his release, Braun agreed to get a job and maintain employment, but FBI investigators found that he failed to go to his job for two years and was eventually fired.

In addition to the federal charges against Braun, the Federal Trade Commission and the New York attorney general brought a civil case against Braun for operating an extortionate small business loan operation.

He was forced to pay a $20 million penalty and permanently barred from lending or collecting money in the future.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Tanya Hajjar and Rachel Bennek also asserted in their sentencing memo filed Friday that Braun has flouted the federal injunction.

“During the course of the defendant’s narcotics trafficking operations, his participation in the merchant cash advance industry, and his conduct as detailed during the revocation hearing, the defendant used violence and threats against those the defendant perceived to be vulnerable: individuals who owed Braun money or who were employed by him,” the prosecutors wrote, arguing that five years was the appropriate penalty.

Defense attorney Kathryn Wozencroft, a public defender, said Braun’s behavior was the result of a drug problem that he has been able to get under control during the seven months he has been in jail. She has asked that he be sentenced to time served and ordered to undergo drug treatment.

“This case is not about excusing Mr. Braun’s conduct. It is about recognizing, through credible medical opinions and observed transformation, that his conduct was driven by a treatable illness — one from which he is now in recovery,” the lawyer wrote in her sentencing memo.

Prosecutors pointed out that Braun made similar pleas for leniency during his previous drug case.