Trump has pardoned the conviction of a California fraudster he acquitted of other crimes

President Trump this week pardoned a San Diego woman who commuted her sentence during his first term but was recently incarcerated under a different program.

In 2016 a federal judge convicted Adriana Camberos and her then-husband, Joseph Shayota, of conspiracy charges in connection with an extensive scheme to sell millions of counterfeit bottles of 5-Hour Energy shot in the United States. He was sentenced to 26 months in prison and served more than half of that time when Trump commuted his sentence in 2021.

But his freedom was short-lived. In 2024, Camberos and his brother, Andres, were convicted of a separate crime that involved lying to manufacturers to buy wholesale groceries and other extras at deep discounts after promising they were sold in Mexico or to prisons or correctional facilities. The brothers then sold the products at inflated prices to American distributors, prosecutors said.

To avoid detection, prosecutors said, Camberos and his brother committed bank and mail fraud. Prosecutors say the couple made millions in illegal profits, sponsoring a lavish lifestyle that included a Lamborghini Huracan, multiple homes in the San Diego area and a beachfront condominium in Coronado.

The decision to pardon Camberos came amid a flurry of such moves by Trump in recent days, including the father of his top PAC donor and the former governor of Puerto Rico, who pleaded guilty in August of last year to campaign finance violations in a case that federal authorities say also involved a former FBI agent and a Venezuelan businessman.

The president has issued a number of sentences in the first year of his second term, many of the defendants in criminal cases previously reported by federal prosecutors. The moves come amid ongoing efforts by the Trump administration to undermine public integrity — including the firing of the Justice Department’s chief pardon attorney.

Among those granted relief from their prison sentences are defendants connected to the president or people in his path.

Administration officials did not provide a public explanation for Trump’s decision to pardon Camberos. But a White House official, speaking later, said the administration felt it was correcting an earlier mistake by pardoning Camberos, saying he and his brother were unfairly targeted and faced political persecution under former President Biden’s administration. The official alleges that the Biden administration targeted the Camberos family because of previous convictions and that the conduct was part of the Camberos grocery business.

Before her first conviction, authorities said Camberos and her then-husband owned a company called Baja Exporting, which contracted with 5-Hour Energy distributors to sell the product in Mexico. However, the company then changed the packaging and labeling of the goods to Spanish and instead distributed them in the US below the company’s standard retail price, prosecutors said.

That relabeling effort involved 350,000 bottles sold from late 2009 to 2011 at 15% below normal prices, according to authorities. The couple then took it a step further, teaming up with other defendants in Southern California and Michigan to create a fake concoction that was bottled and labeled to mimic the authentic product, according to court records. The scheme changed over the next year to one that produced and marketed several million bottles of the counterfeit drink that was mixed under unsanitary conditions by day laborers, prosecutors said.

Six other defendants pleaded guilty to similar charges in connection with the scheme.

It was unclear if any consumers were harmed. The Food and Drug Administration, which regulates 5-Hour Energy as a dietary supplement, has investigated at least eight deaths and a dozen life-threatening reactions involving energy shots before and during counterfeiting.

The latest wave of sympathies includes Trump’s previous pardons of former Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and former Republican Connecticut Gov. John Rowland, whose promising political career was fueled by a corruption scandal and two federal prison terms.

Trump also pardoned former US Rep. Michael Grimm, a New York Republican who resigned from Congress after being convicted of tax fraud and made headlines for threatening to throw a reporter off the Capitol balcony for a question he didn’t like. Reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, who were convicted of bank fraud and tax evasion, were also pardoned by Trump.

Times staff writer Ana Ceballos and The Associated Press contributed to this report.