December 24, 2008 - Isaac R. Toussie and President George Bush, Washington D.C.

Pardon Lasts One Day for Man in Fraud Case

President Bush changed his mind on Christmas Eve, pulling back a pardon he had extended a day earlier to a Brooklyn developer at the center of a Long Island real estate fraud case and adding a bizarre twist to the episode.

The developer, Isaac R. Toussie, who was listed Tuesday as one of the beneficiaries of the president’s constitutional power to wipe away a criminal record, is not being pardoned “based on information that has subsequently come to light,” the White House said late Wednesday afternoon.

The terse White House statement did not elaborate, but officials familiar with the case said that presidential aides — and perhaps President Bush himself — were concerned about appearances, because Mr. Toussie’s father, Robert, donated $28,500 to the Republican National Committee last April, for what apparently was his first political contribution. He also donated $2,300 to the presidential campaign of Senator John McCain.

Regardless of how Mr. Toussie is perceived by Republicans in Washington, the name of Isaac Toussie is detested by many working-class people in the New York metropolitan area. In 2001, several hundred of them sued in Federal District Court, accusing Mr. Toussie and his father of masterminding a scheme in which inexperienced or first-time buyers were promised affordable and comfortable suburban houses but instead were sold shoddily built homes in poor neighborhoods and saddled by mortgage payments that shot up surprisingly.

“The politically connected get what they want, and little people like us are just left to sink or swim,” Maxine Wilson, one of the homeowners, said Tuesday after Mr. Toussie’s pardon was announced, according to The Daily News. “Thanks to the president for the worst Christmas gift you could have ever given us.”

Mr. Toussie, now 37, pleaded guilty in 2001 to using false documents to get mortgages insured by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and in 2002 to mail fraud, admitting that he had persuaded officials in Suffolk County to overpay for land. It appeared Tuesday that Mr. Toussie would have his record expunged of his crimes, which resulted in five months in prison, three years of supervised release conditioned on five months of home detention and a $10,000 fine.

But the White House’s announcement on Wednesday noted that the United States pardon attorney, Ronald L. Rodgers, had not made a recommendation on the Toussie case, and that President Bush believed he “should have an opportunity” to do so.

It was clear from the timing and wording of the announcement that there had been major confusion or miscommunication, or both, within the White House bureaucracy over the Toussie case. “Quite remarkable,” Henry E. Mazurek of Brooklyn, one of Mr. Toussie’s lawyers, said Wednesday evening, before a meeting with his client to discuss what to do next, if anything.

Another of Mr. Toussie’s lawyers, Bradford A. Berenson of Washington, said his client was pleased that a pardon was initially announced Tuesday and held out hope that it might still come true. “Mr. Toussie looks forward to the pardon attorney’s expeditious review of the application,” Mr. Berenson said.

The episode is particularly embarrassing for Fred F. Fielding, the White House counsel, who is mentioned by title but not by name in the White House statement, which said pointedly that “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.”

The statement did not explain how Mr. Fielding came to believe the petition should be granted.

Under Justice Department guidelines, the pardon attorney generally does not even consider a petition for a pardon until five years from the time a defendant has completed his sentence. Mr. Toussie’s request would not have come up for review until next May, although he submitted his petition in August.

“We had not even started processing the application because we knew it did not fit our guidelines,” one Justice Department official said Wednesday, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of the issue. Nor had the Justice Department given the White House any hint of where it stood, the official said.

Administration officials and experts in pardon law said they were not aware of a prior instance of a president’s withdrawing a pardon after it was announced. “This is extraordinary,” said Margaret Colgate Love, who served as pardon attorney at the Justice Department in the 1990s.

The Justice Department official maintained that Mr. Toussie would have no grounds to argue that the president could not take back a pardon. “A pardon isn’t official until the warrant is received by the person who requested it, and that hasn’t happened yet,” the official said.

The Toussie episode comes as more lawyers appear to be going directly to the White House for consideration of pardons, rather than through Justice Department channels, according to people involved in the process. The most notorious recent instance came in 2001, when President Bill Clinton pardoned the fugitive financier Marc Rich, even though the Justice Department had not offered a formal recommendation.

Original Story - New York Times

Photo surfaces of President Bush with father of housing scammer Isaac Toussie
GOP donor Robert Toussie - whose scammer son Isaac was pardoned and then unpardoned by Bush - poses with the president earlier this year.

A stunning photo of President Bush shaking hands with the father of pardoned - then unpardoned - housing scammer Isaac Toussie emerged Friday as the White House reeled from the embarrassing scandal.

The full-color picture - obtained exclusively by the Daily News - was taken early this year.

It shows a smiling Robert Toussie clasping the President's hand as they stand in front of an American flag.

It was not immediately clear if the picture was snapped before or after Robert Toussie's $28,500 donation to the Republican National Committee in April.

Bush pardoned Isaac Toussie on Tuesday. The President took the extraordinary step of rescinding the pardon the next day, after reading about the political contribution in The News.

Isaac Toussie pleaded guilty in 2001 to lying to the Department of Housing and Urban Development to get mortgages for unqualified homebuyers.

Both Toussies face suits accusing them of fleecing hundreds of blacks and Latinos who bought overpriced, shoddy houses.

There was no answer at Robert Toussie's door yesterday.

Meanwhile, Rep. Anthony Weiner is deciding what to do with $9,900 in campaign cash from the Toussie family.

Campaign finance records show the "Weiner '09" mayoral committee received $4,950 each from Isaac Toussie's father, Robert, and mother, Laura, on April 30, 2007.

Weiner has "never gotten any donations from Isaac himself [and] he did not write any letter on behalf of Isaac or take any action to support that pardon," spokesman John Collins said. "We'll take a look at any donations from the Toussie family."

It's not clear why the Toussies showered Weiner (D-Brooklyn, Queens) with so much cash.

The only contact between the congressman and Robert Toussie, who lives in Weiner's district, came because of Toussie's membership in a "civic organization in Manhattan Beach that was trying to get a sea wall fixed," Collins said.

City Controller Bill Thompson, also a Democrat, received $500 from Isaac Toussie on Dec. 23, 2006, records show. Thompson aide Jeff Simmons said the controller had no dealings with Toussie.

Other local Democrats who have received Toussie money include Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, City Councilman Domenic Recchia of Brooklyn and then-mayoral candidate Mark Green.

A Recchia spokesman said the councilman had no personal dealings with the Toussies. Green said the same. Markowitz's spokesman couldn't be reached.

Update - New York Daily News