Trump pardons former Mets great Darryl Strawberry, 3 others

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has pardoned former New York Mets great Darryl Strawberry on past tax evasion and drug charges, citing the 1983 National League Rookie of the Year's post-career embrace of his Christian faith and longtime sobriety.

Strawberry was an outfielder and eight-time All-Star, including seven with the Mets from 1983-90. He hit 335 homers and had 1,000 RBIs and 221 stolen bases in 17 seasons.

Plagued by later legal, health and personal problems, Strawberry was indicted for tax evasion and eventually pleaded guilty in 1995 to a single felony count. That was based on his failure to report $350,000 in income from autographs, personal appearances and sales of memorabilia.

Strawberry agreed to pay more than $430,000 as part of the case. He was diagnosed with colon cancer and underwent surgery and chemotherapy in 1998.

The following year, Strawberry was sentenced to probation and suspended from baseball after pleading no contest to charges of possession of cocaine and soliciting a prostitute. He eventually spoke in court about struggling with depression, and was charged with violating his probation numerous times — including on his 40th birthday in 2002.

Strawberry ultimately served 11 months in Florida state prison, and was released in 2003.

A White House official said Friday that Trump approved a pardon for Strawberry, who had served time and paid back taxes. Speaking on condition of anonymity to detail a pardon that had not yet been formally announced, the official noted that Strawberry found faith in Christianity and has been sober for more than a decade, and that he’d become active in ministry and started a still-active recovery center.

Strawberry posted on Instagram a picture of himself and Trump and wrote, “Thank you, President @realdonaldtrump for my full pardon and for finalizing this part of my life, allowing me to be truly free and clean from all of my past.”

Trump pardons ex-NYPD officer

Trump granted a pardon Friday to a former New York police sergeant who was convicted of helping China try to scare an ex-official into going back to his homeland, a prominent case in U.S. authorities' efforts to combat what they claim are Beijing's far-flung efforts to repress critics.

Michael McMahon was sentenced this spring to 18 months in prison for his role in what a federal judge called “a campaign of transnational repression.” He insisted he was innocent, saying he was “unwittingly used” when he took what he thought was a straightforward private-investigator gig. McMahon said he was told he was working for a Chinese construction company, not the nation's government.

A White House official, speaking Friday on condition of anonymity to discuss a pardon that hasn’t been publicly announced, pointed to McMahon's explanation that he'd been misled. The official also noted that McMahon earned dozens of commendations before a 2001 injury ended his 14-year NYPD career.

McMahon's lawyer, Lawrence Lustberg, said the pardon “corrects a horrible injustice.”

“I will always believe that it was the Chinese government that victimized Mike, a true hero cop, whom our government should have celebrated and honored, rather than indicted,” Lustberg said by email.

The Brooklyn-based federal prosecutors’ office that brought the case declined to comment.

A jury had convicted McMahon, 58, of charges that included acting as an illegal foreign agent and stalking. He was released from prison to a halfway house earlier this year and was back at his New Jersey home Friday, his attorney said.

Trump pardons former Tennessee House speaker

Trump has pardoned the former Tennessee House speaker and a onetime aide of public corruption charges after the White House said the Biden administration Justice Department “significantly over-prosecuted” both for a minor issue.

Former Republican state Rep. Glen Casada was sentenced in September to three years in prison, and his former chief of staff, Cade Cothren, was also convicted and received a 2 1/2-year prison sentence. The case centered on their actions after both had been driven from their leadership roles and were accused of running a scheme to win taxpayer-funded mail business from lawmakers.

The moves continued a pattern of Trump, a Republican, using his second term to bestow unlikely pardons on political allies, prominent public figures and others convicted of defrauding the public.

Many of the clemencies he granted have targeted criminal cases once touted as just by the Justice Department. They also have come amid a continuing Trump administration effort to erode public integrity guardrails — including the firing of the department’s pardon attorney and the near-dismantling of a prosecution unit established to hold public officials accountable for abusing the public trust.

According to prosecutors, Cothren launched a company called Phoenix Solutions — with the knowledge and support of Casada and then-Rep. Robin Smith. The three claimed the company was run by “Matthew Phoenix,” later determined to be fictitious. The companies controlled by Casada and Smith received roughly $52,000 in taxpayer money in 2020 from a mailer program for lawmakers.