WASHINGTON: Trevor Milton, the founder of electric vehicle start-up Nikola who was sentenced to prison last year for fraud, was pardoned by President Donald Trump, the White House confirmed Friday.
The pardon of Milton, who was sentenced to four years in prison for exaggerating the potential of his technology, could wipe out hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution that prosecutors were seeking for defrauded investors.
Milton, 42, and his wife donated more than $1.8 million to a Trump re-election campaign fund less than a month before the November election, according to the Federal Election Commission.
At Milton’s trial, prosecutors say a company video of a prototype truck appearing to be driven down a desert highway was actually a video of a nonfunctioning Nikola that had been rolled down a hill.
Milton had not been incarcerated pending an appeal.
Milton said late Thursday on social media that he had been pardoned by Trump.
“I am incredibly grateful to President Trump for his courage in standing up for what is right and for granting me this sacred pardon of innocence,” Milton said.
The White House confirmed the pardon Friday, though there was no notice of a pardon on the White House website.
When asked by a reporter in a news conference Friday why he pardoned Milton, Trump said it was “highly recommended by many people.” Trump suggested that Milton was prosecuted because he supported the president.
“They say the the thing that he did wrong was he was one of the first people that supported a gentleman named Donald Trump for president,” Trump said.
Trump went on to say that Milton “did nothing wrong” and that the Southern District of New York’s prosecutors were “a vicious group of people.”
During his securities fraud case, Milton was defended by two lawyers with connections to Trump: Marc Mukasey, who has represented the Trump Organization; and Brad Bondi, the brother of Pam Bondi, who Trump appointed as US Attorney General.
Also Friday, Trump commuted the sentence of Ozy Media co-founder Carlos Watson, just before he was due to report to prison for a nearly 10-year sentence in a financial conspiracy case.
Trump has wasted little time in using his pardon power since beginning his second term. Hours after taking office, he wiped clean the records of roughly 1,500 people who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol. The next day, Trump announced that he had pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road, an underground website for selling drugs.
Ulbricht had been sentenced to life in prison in 2015 after a high-profile prosecution that highlighted the role of the Internet in illegal markets.
Nikola, which was a hot start-up and rising star on Wall Street before becoming enmeshed in scandal, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February.
Milton, convicted of fraud, was portrayed by prosecutors as a con man six years after he had founded the company in a basement in Utah.
Prosecutors said Milton falsely claimed to have built its own revolutionary truck that was actually a General Motors product with Nikola’s logo stamped onto it.
Called as a government witness, Nikola’s CEO testified that Milton “was prone to exaggeration” when pitching his venture to investors.
Milton resigned in 2020 amid reports of fraud that sent Nikola’s stock prices into a tailspin. Investors suffered heavy losses as reports questioned Milton’s claims that the company had already produced zero-emission 18-wheel trucks.
The company paid $125 million in 2021 to settle a civil case against it by the SEC. Nikola didn’t admit any wrongdoing.
The US District Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, which prosecuted the case, declined to comment on Milton’s pardon.
At the time of his conviction US Attorney Damian Williams said, “Trevor Milton lied to investors again and again — on social media, on television, on podcasts, and in print. But today’s sentence should be a warning to start-up founders and corporate executives everywhere — ‘fake it till you make it’ is not an excuse for fraud, and if you mislead your investors, you will pay a stiff price.”
The White House said Trump also pardoned on Thursday cryptocurrency entrepreneurs Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, and Samuel Reed. The three men founded and help run the cryptocurrency exchange BITMEX, which was ordered to pay a $100 million fine earlier this year after prosecutors said it “willfully flouted US anti-money laundering laws to boost revenue.” Hayes, Delo and Reed pleaded guilty in 2022 to violating the Bank Secrecy Act and were sentenced to probation.
Convicted of bilking investors, Nikola founder and Trump donor gets a presidential pardon
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Convicted of bilking investors, Nikola founder and Trump donor gets a presidential pardon
- Trevor Milton donated more than $1.8 million to a Trump re-election campaign fund less than a month before the November election, says election watchdog
- Trump said Friday that Milton “did nothing wrong” and that the Southern District of New York’s prosecutors were “a vicious group of people”
Australian political leaders launch election campaigns focused on first-time homeowners
MELBOURNE: Australia’s rival political leaders offered Sunday competing policies to help Australians buy a home ahead of the nation’s first federal election in which younger voters will outnumber the long-dominant baby boomer generation.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and opposition leader Peter Dutton officially launched their parties’ campaigns ahead of the May 3 elections.
Helping aspiring homeowners buy into a national real estate market in which prices are high and supply is constrained due to inflation, builders going broke, shortages of materials and a growing population was central to both campaigns.
“Buying a first home has never been easy, but for this generation, it’s never felt further out of reach,” Albanese told his supporters in the west coast city of Perth.
“In Australia, home ownership should not be a privilege you inherit if you’re lucky. It should be an aspiration that Australians everywhere can achieve,” he added.
The governing center-left Labor Party promised Sunday 10 billion Australian dollars ($6.3 billion) in grants and loans to build 100,000 new homes over eight years exclusively for first-homebuyers, who would only have to pay a 5 percent deposit instead of the current minimum 20 percent, with the government paying the remainder.
Opposition promises to reduce housing demand
Dutton’s conservative Liberal Party promised to ease demand for housing by banning foreign investors and temporary residents from buying existing homes for two years while reducing immigration and foreign student numbers.
Spain busts ring bringing Moroccans in via Romania
MADRID: Spanish police said on Sunday they had broken a ring that had brought in up to 2,500 Moroccan irregular immigrants via Romania, arresting four suspects.
The four were detained in the southeastern Murcia province on charges of belonging to a criminal organization and facilitating irregular migration, the Guardia Civil said in a statement.
The Moroccans entered Europe by plane to Romania, from where they were transported to Spain, with each one charged 3,000 euros ($3,400) for the voyage, it said. The suspects were alleged to be the ringleaders of the organization. Their nationalities were not specified.
Spanish authorities believe the ring organized 50 such trips over the past two years, each one composed of between 20 and 50 Moroccans, making for a total of between 1,000 and 2,500 irregular immigrants.
The outfit was alleged to have a “logistics center” in Romania where it hid the migrants while they awaited their transport to Spain.
The Guardia Civil said the operation to bust the ring was conducted with the help of Europol and the European Union’s border patrol agency Frontex.
Dozens reported killed in east Congo as government, rebels trade blame
- Renewed fighting has killed some 3,000 people and worsened one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises
GOMA: At least 50 people were killed in weekend attacks in Congo’s conflict-battered east, authorities said Saturday. The government traded blame with Rwanda-backed rebels over who was responsible for the violence that quickly escalated the conflict in the region.
The renewed violence that residents reported in and around the region’s largest city of Goma — which the M23 rebels control — was the biggest threat yet to ongoing peace efforts by both the Gulf Arab state of Qatar and African nations in the conflict that has raised fears of regional warfare.
Goma resident Amboma Safari recounted how his family of four spent the night under their bed as they heard gunfire and bomb blasts through Friday night. “We saw corpses of soldiers, but we don’t know which group they are from,” Safari said.
The decades-long conflict between Congo and the M23 rebels escalated in January, when the rebels made an unprecedented advance and seized the strategic eastern Congolese city of Goma, followed by the town of Bukavu in February.
The latest fighting has killed some 3,000 people and worsened what was already one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises, with around 7 million people displaced.
At least 52 people were killed between Friday and Saturday, including a person shot dead at Goma’s Kyeshero Hospital, Congo’s Ministry of Interior said in a statement that blamed the attack on M23.
M23 spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka issued a statement blaming Congolese forces and their allies for the attacks. Kanyuka said Congo’s joint operations with local militias and southern African troops “directly threaten the stability and security of civilians” in the region.
The group said it has been compelled to “reconsider its position to prioritize the security” of the people in the area, suggesting the crisis could worsen. Christian Kalamo, a civil society leader in the North Kivu province that includes Goma, said at least one body was seen on the streets on Saturday.
“It is difficult to know if it is the Wazalendo, the FARDC (Congolese forces) or the M23” that carried out the attacks, Kalamo said. “Now, we don’t know what will happen, and we live with fear in our stomachs, thinking that the war will resume.”
Tanzania opposition party barred from upcoming elections
DAR ES SALAAM: Tanzania’s main opposition party has been disqualified from upcoming general elections, the country’s election chief said, after it refused to sign an electoral code of conduct.
The east African nation has increasingly cracked down on its opposition ahead of a general election due in October.
The opposition Chadema party has accused President Samia Suluhu Hassan of returning to the repressive tactics of her predecessor, John Magufuli.
Chadema leader Tundu Lissu, who was arrested and charged with treason earlier in the week, previously said that his party would not participate in the polls without electoral reform.
On Saturday, Chadema said the party’s secretary-general John Mnyika would not attend an Independent National Elections Commission meeting to sign the government’s electoral code of conduct.
The decision was “informed by the lack of a written response” to the party’s “proposal and demands for essential electoral reforms,” it said in a statement.
INEC Director of Elections Ramadhani Kailima said following the meeting that “any party that hasn’t signed today will not be allowed to take part in the general election or any other elections for the next five years.” “There will be no second chance,” he told reporters.
He did not mention Chadema by name, and the party has not commented on the INEC’s decision.
Tanzania is scheduled to hold presidential and national assembly elections in October.
President Hassan’s party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi swept to victory in local elections last year.
Chadema said those elections had been manipulated, and that it would petition the high court to demand reforms ahead of the upcoming polls.
Lissu last year warned that Chadema would “block the elections through confrontation” unless the electoral system was reformed.
The opposition’s demands have been long ignored by the ruling party.
Hassan was initially feted for easing restrictions imposed by Magufuli on the opposition and the media in the country of 67 million people.
But rights groups and Western governments have criticized what they see as renewed repression, with the arrests of Chadema politicians as well as abductions and murders of opposition figures.
Bangladesh reintroduces ‘except Israel’ phrase on passports
- Israel is a flashpoint issue in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, which does not recognize it
- In 2021, the words “except Israel” were removed from passports
DHAKA: Bangladesh has restored an “except Israel” inscription on passports, local media reported Sunday, effectively barring its citizens from traveling to that country.
Israel is a flashpoint issue in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, which does not recognize it.
The phrase “valid for all countries except Israel,” which was printed on Bangladeshi passports for decades, was removed during the later years of ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s tenure.
Nilima Afroze, a deputy secretary at the home ministry, told Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS) news agency on Sunday that authorities had “issued a directive last week” to restore the inscription.
“The director general of the department of immigration and passport was asked to take necessary measures to implement this change,” local newspaper The Daily Star quoted Afroze as saying Sunday.
In 2021, the words “except Israel” were removed from passports, although the then government under Hasina clarified that the country’s stance on Israel had not changed.
The country’s support for an independent Palestinian state was visible on Saturday when around 100,000 people gathered in Dhaka in solidarity with Gaza.
The Gaza war broke out after Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
A fragile ceasefire between the warring parties fell apart last month and Gaza’s health ministry said Sunday that at least 1,574 Palestinians had been killed since then, taking the overall death toll since the war began to 50,944.
