HIALEAH, Fla. (AP) – A Florida woman who got clemency from President Donald Trump while serving prison time for a $205 million Medicare fraud scam said Wednesday her case was brought to Trump’s attention by a woman who herself got clemency at the urging of reality TV star Kim Kardashian West.
Judith Negron was eight years into a 35-year prison sentence that the FBI called one of the longest sentences ever imposed in a Medicare Fraud Strike Force case when Trump commuted her sentence Tuesday.
“I had some guardian angels as I call them, such as Alice Johnson, who had been advocating for me behind the scenes,” Negron told The Associated Press in an interview at her home shortly after her release.
Johnson was serving life without parole for drug offenses when Trump granted her clemency in June 2018. She had been convicted in 1996 on eight criminal accounts related to a Memphis based cocaine trafficking operation. Johnson was featured in one of Trump’s campaign ads during this year’s Super Bowl. She told the AP that the president had been looking specifically for female candidates, and had asked her for a list of other women who deserved clemency.
Negron, who turns 50 next week, was among the 11 federal inmates around the nation who received clemency actions thanks to the president. The Hispanic woman was convicted as a first-time offender in 2011 in a case that made national headlines.