Trump Lets Nursing Home Con Man Buy His Way Out of Prison

AI pro-Trump influencers are flooding social media, ICE arrested the wife of an active-duty sergeant at her immigration interview, and a Florida student face 15 years in prison for a Netanyahu joke

Good afternoon. I’m Ryan Rose, and this is AlterNet America.

Trump pardoned a nursing home operator who let elderly patients die in squalor and still owes the grieving families millions. Hundreds of AI-generated influencers are flooding social media with pro-Trump content, and Trump himself has been sharing it. ICE arrested the wife of an active-duty sergeant at the immigration office where she went to apply for legal protection. And a Florida student faces 15 years in prison for a Netanyahu joke.

Before we get into it: No billionaire bought us. No advertiser needs us to find the charitable interpretation. No parent company is doing quiet deals with the people we cover. We don’t have a broadcast license the FCC can yank or a board of directors with opinions about what you should and shouldn’t know. What we have is readers, and we need them to pay for this. If you’ve been reading for free, we’re asking you to become a paid subscriber today.

Now, let’s dive in.

He Robbed Nursing Homes, His Patients Died, and Trump Let Him Go

Joseph Schwartz ran a nursing home empire out of a second-floor office above a pizza parlor in New Jersey. He ran it badly.

His nursing homes left patients suffering, employees buying food for residents out of their own pockets, and workers stuck with medical bills after their insurance premiums were deducted from paychecks but never actually used to fund coverage.

Schwartz admitted to withholding $39 million in employee payroll taxes and diverting the money for other purposes. A judge awarded one family nearly $19 million after their loved one died in his care. Another family was awarded $15.7 million after an 81-year-old woman died of sepsis from untreated bedsores.

None of them have collected a cent.

Trump pardoned Schwartz three months into a three-year prison sentence, with the White House calling him an example of overprosecution. Before the pardon, Schwartz spent nearly $1 million lobbying the White House, the Justice Department, and Congress.

A top Justice Department official declared Schwartz “free to rebuild.” The families are still waiting for someone to declare what they’re supposed to rebuild with.

Hundreds of AI Influencers Are Flooding Social Media With Pro-Trump Content

Someone figured out you can manufacture pro-Trump consensus for $3 a post. They manufactured a lot of it. Trump found it and hit repost. The circle of life.

At least 304 AI-generated accounts have been identified sharing MAGA content across social media, posting about the “radical left,” and pushing the “America First” agenda. Some accounts have pulled in more than 35,000 followers, with individual posts racking up over half a million views. Trump himself shared content from a blonde avatar making unsubstantiated claims about California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Each post likely costs just $1 to $3 to produce, and a single person could easily handle the workload. Researchers found the same characters appearing across multiple accounts — a blonde woman with pigtails on a farm, a Black woman in a red MAGA cap and aviator goggles — recycled through different profiles.

The bots have better engagement than a lot of real political accounts and never go off message. In a sense, they are the best surrogates Trump has ever had. They are also not people. These two facts are related.

We are not going to manufacture consensus. We are not going to spend a million dollars on anyone. We are going to write what happened and tell you what it means and trust that you can handle it. If that’s important to you, upgrade your subscription today.

ICE Detained the Wife of an Active-Duty Army Sergeant

Deisy Rivera Ortega showed up to an El Paso immigration office on April 14 for an interview about a program that protects military spouses from deportation. ICE arrested her there. Her husband is an active-duty Army sergeant who has served for 27 years.

She was doing everything right. That’s what made her easy to find.

Rivera Ortega has lived in the U.S. since 2016. An immigration judge granted her legal protection from deportation in 2019 under the Convention Against Torture. She had an active work permit at the time of her arrest. Serrano told officials about his military service before she was taken. They detained her anyway.

The government’s position is that she could be sent to Mexico, a country she has no connection to. Serrano’s response was succinct: “We don’t know nobody in Mexico. Plus, as a military, we’re not allowed to go to Mexico.”

Serrano has previously been treated for a traumatic brain injury, PTSD, and depression. He says he’s been sleeping two hours a night since his wife was taken. His attorney, a combat veteran and former Army judge advocate, called the situation absurd.

The Army has not intervened. The administration has not explained itself. Serrano is still on active duty, which means he is currently serving a country that is deporting his wife to one she has never lived in.

FIU Arrested a Student for a Netanyahu Joke. GOP Students Posting Slurs Are Fine.

A Florida International University student made a bad Netanyahu joke in a group chat, immediately said it was a bad joke, and was arrested at 2 a.m. for a felony.

Gabriela Saldana, 23, allegedly sent two messages in a 215-person student WhatsApp group chat. One said, “Netanyahu, if you can hear me, drop some bonbons for us capstone students in Ocean Bank Convention Center.” Another referenced a bomb at the venue, blaming a fellow student.

She now faces a second-degree felony charge for written threats to kill or do bodily harm, carrying a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison. Her bail was set at $5,000.

FIU’s urgency here is notable given its history. A separate WhatsApp chat recently surfaced involving the president of FIU’s Turning Point USA chapter and other conservative student leaders. Participants used the N-word more than 200 times, repeated antisemitic slurs, and discussed white supremacist ideology.

Five weeks after those messages became public, none of the students involved had been suspended or expelled. Disciplinary hearings had not been scheduled.

A Miami-Dade Republican Party official created the chat. A 23-year-old student created a bad Netanyahu joke. One of them has been arrested. One of them still has his party title.

The standard being applied here is not about threats. It never was.

That standard is applied selectively and enforced strategically. It’s what we cover every day. We are not going to call a pardon overprosecution when it isn’t. We are not going to describe a deliberate pattern as a series of coincidences. We are not going to find the charitable interpretation when there isn’t one.

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Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tomorrow.

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