President Donald Trump is issuing an "unconditional pardon" for an ex-sheriff convicted of federal bribery charges.
Former Culpeper County Sheriff Scott Jenkins was convicted and sentenced in March after prosecutors say he violated his oath with a cash for badges scheme. The charges against him included conspiracy, wire fraud and bribery.
Jenkins received over $75,000 in cash payments in exchange for appointing numerous businessmen as auxiliary deputy sheriffs. According to testimony in the case from two undercover FBI agents, Jenkins swore them in and then immediately received cash payments in envelopes.
He was originally sentenced to 10 years in prison and was set to report to jail on Tuesday.
But Trump signaled on Monday that Jenkins would receive a pardon, saying on social media that Jenkins and his family had been "dragged through HELL by a Corrupt and Weaponized Biden DOJ."
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President Trump last month pardoned health care executive Paul Walczak, who was sentenced to more than a year in prison for tax offenses. The pardon came after Walczak's mother, a high-profile Trump donor, attended a $1-million-per-plate fundraiser dinner at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort.
In recent moths, the president has also pardoned Michele Fiore, a Republican in Nevada who faced federal charges for misusing funds raised to erect a statue of a slain police officer; and Ross Ulbricht, who founded the drug market website Silk Road.
"The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me," President Trump said at the time.
