New Jersey businessman paid $1M to a lobbying firm to try to get a pardon from Trump

A corrupt New Jersey businessman who used gold bars to bribe former Sen.

A corrupt New Jersey businessman who used gold bars to bribe former Sen. Bob Menendez paid $1 million to a Washington, D.C., lobbyist to try to ask for clemency from President Donald Trump, three sources familiar with the matter said.

Lobbying disclosure forms show convicted felon Fred Daibes paid Keith Schiller and his Javelin Advisors firm seeking “executive relief” for his seven-year prison sentence.

“We all really know ‘executive relief’ means a pardon or shorten my sentence and get me out of prison,” said NBC News legal analyst Danny Cevallos.

Daibes began serving his sentence at Federal Correctional Institution Fairton in Cumberland County, New Jersey, in May. He was convicted in New York federal court of bribing Menendez with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and gold bars. In exchange, Daibes had asked Menendez to pressure federal prosecutors in New Jersey to go easy on him for his separate bank fraud crimes.

Fred Daibes, a real estate developer and one of the co-defendants on trial with former U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, D-N.J., at Manhattan federal court, in New York City, on July 12, 2024.Adam Gray / Getty Images fileDaibes later pleaded guilty in the bank fraud case and got three years in prison. The sentence was ordered to run concurrent with his New York bribery sentence.