Dr. Salomon Melgen, the Democratic donor and friend of Sen. Bob Menendez who was convicted of defrauding elderly patients on Medicare, had his prison sentence commuted by President Donald Trump in the outgoing Republican president s final hours in office.
Melgen was one of 143 people granted clemency by Trump early Wednesday morning in one of his final acts before the inauguration of Joe Biden. It continued a pattern of Trump forgiving the crimes of people close to him and those with political connections, no matter the party.
Melgen stood trial with Menendez in 2017, when the longtime friends faced corruption charges. That ended in a mistrial, but Melgen was convicted in a separate federal case of 67 crimes that included health care fraud, submitting false claims and falsifying records in patients files.
A federal appeals court upheld the conviction of former Ocean County Republican Party Chairman George R. Gilmore, 71, on charges of failing to pay over payroll taxes to the IRS and making false statements in a loan application.
Disgraced former Ocean County Republican Chairman George Gilmore appears in this 2009 photo with the late Freeholder John Bartlett, his son Jay Bartlett, Freeholder Gerry Little, and his son Matt Little
A federal grand jury on January 10, 2019, indicted Gilmore, of Toms River, for evasion of taxes totaling more than $1 million; filing false income tax returns; failing to pay over payroll taxes to the IRS; and making false statements on a bank loan application.