Trump Pardoned Nursing Home Fraudster After $1 Million Lobbying Blitz -- Families Left Empty-Handed

Donald Trump pardoned Joseph Schwartz, a nursing home owner convicted in a $39 million tax fraud scheme, after serving just three months of his three-year sentence. Schwartz paid lobbyists nearly $1 million to secure the pardon -- leaving families owed millions for neglect-related deaths and mismanagement with little hope of recovery.

The Pardon

On November 14, 2025, President Donald Trump granted a full pardon to Joseph Schwartz, the former owner of Skyline Healthcare nursing homes, who had pleaded guilty to a $39 million tax fraud scheme. Schwartz had served exactly three months of his 36-month federal prison sentence.

Federal records confirm the pardon. What they don't show is the million-dollar lobbying campaign that preceded it.

Pay to Play

According to a ProPublica investigation published March 30, 2026, Schwartz paid lobbyists Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl $960,000 during the second quarter of 2025 -- after his sentencing -- to advocate for a presidential pardon with the White House, the Justice Department, and Congress.

Federal lobbying disclosure forms document the payments. Three months later, Trump signed the pardon.

The White House has not explained the basis for the clemency decision. Schwartz did not serve out his sentence. The families he harmed did not get their money back.

The Crimes

In April 2025, a federal judge sentenced Schwartz to three years in prison after he pleaded guilty to two charges: willfully failing to pay over $39 million in employment taxes withheld from his employees, and willfully failing to file required financial reports for his employees' 401(k) benefit plan.

The Justice Department described it as a $38 million tax fraud scheme. Schwartz admitted to the crimes. Then he hired lobbyists.

The Victims

The tax fraud was only part of the story. Between 2017 and 2019, Schwartz's Skyline Healthcare empire -- which operated more than 100 nursing homes across 11 states -- collapsed under the weight of mismanagement and documented neglect.

NBC News reported that many facilities ran out of money. Others shut down due to neglect so severe it resulted in deaths.

In 2023, a court ordered Schwartz to pay $15.7 million to the family of Zelma Grissom, an 81-year-old Arkansas woman who died of sepsis after suffering untreated bedsores at one of his facilities. Attorney John Martell Landis represented the family. News reports and Grissom's obituary confirm the details.

Other families won similar judgments totaling millions more. ProPublica reported that Trump's pardon made it far less likely those families will ever recover the money owed to them.

State Charges Remain

Presidents cannot pardon state crimes. In December 2025, an Arkansas judge ordered Schwartz to report to state prison to serve out the remainder of a one-year sentence for Medicaid fraud and tax evasion, according to the Arkansas Advocate.

He was granted parole less than a month later.

A Pattern

This is not the first time Trump has pardoned someone connected to nursing home fraud. In 2020, he commuted the sentence of Philip Esformes, a nursing home operator convicted of massive Medicare and Medicaid fraud in 2019.

The families of Skyline residents are still waiting for justice. Joseph Schwartz is free. The bill for his pardon: $960,000 to lobbyists, and whatever assurances were made behind closed doors at the White House.