President Trump has commuted the sentence of a real estate developer who was convicted two years ago in a $50 million mortgage fraud involving Connecticut properties.
Jacob Deutsch of Brooklyn was sentenced in January 2024 to five years in prison and fined $10,000 for his role in a scheme that involved the acquisition of 17 multifamily housing complexes in the Connecticut capital city of Hartford between 2016 and 2021. Deutsch partnered with his cousin Aron Deutsch to create hundreds of fraudulent financial documents to obtain 24 separate mortgages.
To support their applications, the cousins submitted fake lists of tenants, along with forged signatures on phony leases and fake moving in dates. Deutsch went so far as to hire a staging company to give the false impression of occupied units when a lender came to inspect the properties.
At the time of his trial, federal prosecutors said the “sheer volume of false documents and material misrepresentations’’ in this scheme was “staggering,” with lenders losing about $3.5 million on $50 million in loans. Prosecutors said the cousins used their loan proceeds to acquire new buildings and renovate previously acquired properties.
After his arrest and while released on bond, Deutsch victimized another lender to secure an $11 million loan. Deutsch had a prior criminal history with a wire fraud conviction stemming from an insurance fraud scheme. In October 2003, he was sentenced to three months of imprisonment for that offense.
Trump offered no explanation for this action, which was issued on Jan. 15 without an official announcement. The presidential declaration called for “an immediate commutation of his entire sentence to time served with no fines, restitution, probation, or other conditions.”
