Yesterday the President forwarded to the Pardon Attorney a Master Warrant of Clemency including 19 requests for pardons with direction that he execute and deliver grants of clemency to the named individuals.
With respect to the case of Mr. Isaac R. Toussie, the Counsel to the President reviewed the application and believed, based on the information known to him at the time, that it was a meritorious application. He so advised the President, who accepted the recommendation.
Based on information that has subsequently come to light, the President has directed the Pardon Attorney not to execute and deliver a Grant of Clemency to Mr. Toussie. The Pardon Attorney has not provided a recommendation on Mr. Toussie’s case because it was filed less than five years from completion of his sentence. The President believes that the Pardon Attorney should have an opportunity to review this case before a decision on clemency is made.
Toussie, the 30-year-old son of New York real estate developer Robert, was among 19 pardons in a pre-Christmas round of clemencies granted by President Bush this week. He defrauded the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development out of millions of dollars and pled guilty to falsifying the incomes of at least 100 families, sometimes without their knowledge, to help them get federal loans. He was sentenced to five months in prison and five months' house arrest in 2003, along with a $10,000 fine, but escaped having to pay restitution.
Robert and Isaac Toussie were sued in 2001 in what was called the largest real estate discrimination lawsuit ever filed in New York. The suit, filed on behalf of 400 families, charged that the Toussies co-conspired with over a dozen lenders to defraud minority homebuyers. It said that the defendants showed "callous and reckless disregard for the rights of plaintiffs" in using a "pattern of racial and national-origin discrimination...involving predatory lending and the discriminatory and predatory marketing and sale of residential real property."
White House counsel Fred Fielding originally reviewed Toussie's application for pardon and recommended it be granted, but "new information" coming to light overnight, including the nature of the crimes committed and $28,500 in donations to the Republican Party made by Robert Toussie, as RAW STORY recently discovered in campaign finance records. According to spokesperson Dana Perino, neither the White House, nor the President, were aware at the time of review of said donations, which "might create an appearance of impropriety."
The accompanying video report was broadcast on CNN on December 24, 2008:
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