New York lawyer linked to Trump pardon charged with attempted extortion | Brooklyn
A New York lobbyist and lawyer linked to a presidential pardon granted by Donald Trump in November has been charged with trying to extort a former client and that client’s son over an alleged $500,000 debt.
Joshua Nass, 34, was arrested Friday after being charged in Brooklyn federal court with attempted extortion under the Hobbs Act. U.S. Justice Department prosecutors say Nass threatened a client into paying what he claimed was owed for his services.
Nass allegedly provided an anonymous person with a phone number and addresses while asking them to visit the customer at his home. It was an attempt to intimidate the customer into paying, prosecutors said.
According to prosecutors, Nass told the individual in question to “do anything and everything” to force him to pay, including “physically assaulting” the customer’s son or “forcing him into a car with masked men and threatening to force someone into a car.” [the son’s] the family pays Nass.”
It is also alleged that Nass told the individual that he could not be a “human being” to the customer’s son if the customer refused to pay. Nass allegedly agreed to pay the individual “at least $15,000 for his continued efforts.”
“As alleged, Nass plotted the violent extortion of one of his own clients and hired an individual to ‘do anything and everything’ to force the client’s son to pay for the services,” U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. of the Eastern District of New York said in a statement.
FBI Deputy Director James Barnacle said that “rather than honestly representing his client, Joshua Nass allegedly chose to shake him down by hiring an enforcer to extort money from him.”
Nass faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of the charges against him. He was due to make his first court appearance on Saturday.
After a brief court appearance Saturday, Nass was released on $5 million bail. Five properties – two in New York and three in South Carolina – along with $50,000 in cash secured the bond. He was also placed under electronic GPS monitoring.
Nass played a role in Trump’s Nov. 14, 2025, pardon of Joseph Schwartz, who had been convicted in Arkansas for his ownership of a nursing home empire that failed to pay nearly $40 million in employment and payroll taxes — and had been charged with Medicaid fraud.
Neither Schwartz nor his son are mentioned in the government statement.
But Nass made it clear in a public filing that he received $100,000 toward the end of 2025 “for advocacy activities regarding executive clemency and post-conviction clemency, including defense of the federal presidential pardon and subsequent efforts to secure expedited parole and state-level relief in Arkansas.”
Separately, in documents related to the extortion case against the lawyer, prosecutors allege that Nass’ client’s son facilitated a payment of $100,000 of the $600,000 owed for lobbying services.
Earlier in March, The New York Times reported that Schwartz had established ties to Trump through Nass and his connections to pro-Israel evangelicals.
Nass told the outlet that “clemency reflects the belief that people are capable of redemption.” Referring to Trump’s numerous pardons during his second presidency, Nass added that Trump “has shown a willingness to give second chances to deserving individuals — and he should be commended for that.”
The case against Nass comes amid allegations that Trump’s clemency system is shaped by lobbyists, although White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has rejected that claim.
“Anyone who spends money lobbying for pardons is foolishly wasting their money, and the president doesn’t even know who these so-called ‘lobbyists’ are,” Leavitt told the Times.
