A voter who supported former President Donald Trump has voiced his dismay after learning that Trump commuted the prison sentence of Marian Morgan, a woman convicted of defrauding him and others out of millions of dollars. John Long, 80, who lost approximately $500,000 in the scheme, described the decision as a setback for justice.
Long, a pig farmer in Colorado, found out about the clemency granted to Morgan around the time it was issued last year. Morgan had been sentenced to nearly 34 years in prison in 2013 and ordered to pay $20 million in restitution for defrauding Long, his son, and numerous other investors through a Ponzi scheme.
"We had justice and now it’s kind of like… ‘we’re going to let these criminals go out and do it again,’" Long told The Sunday Times, according to HuffPost. He recalled investing in what was presented as a lucrative European venture in 2006 after being contacted by Morgan and her associates. When the promised returns did not materialize and he discovered Morgan was in Florida instead of on a supposed business trip to Europe, he alerted the FBI.
Morgan was arrested in 2009 and convicted in 2011. Her husband, John Morgan, also received a 10-year prison sentence for his involvement in the scheme. Trump's decision to commute Morgan's sentence also waived the restitution payments she owed to the victims of her fraud, despite a 2021 court statement where she expressed remorse and a desire to repay those she harmed.
Reports from last year indicated that the majority of the millions owed in restitution had not been paid by the time Trump issued the clemency order. The White House has previously defended such decisions, with a spokesperson telling Reuters in June that lobbying for pardons was a waste of money, though reports have suggested a trend of attorneys and lobbyists leveraging their connections to the administration to secure pardons.
In a separate matter, a Trump-appointed U.S. District Court judge, Tom Barber, had denied Morgan's request for compassionate release last year, citing her continued potential danger to the public. Long characterized Morgan as "criminally insane" and suggested she could still defraud others. He expressed that the power of pardon should be removed from the presidency, stating that Trump's action demonstrated poor judgment and that the system, regardless of who holds power, can be corrupt.