Presidential clemency – and then a separate full pardon?

Let’s open up with Adrian Camberos (aka Adriana Shayota). You may not have hear of her unless you live in California, but she is one “lucky” lady – she received a Presidential Pardon for her conviction for millions of dollars in fraud.

Their illegal scheme involved lying to manufacturers to sell wholesale groceries and other goods at steep discounts by promising the goods would be sold in Mexico, or to prisons or rehabilitation facilities. Instead, the defendants sold the products at higher prices to U.S. distributors, for the U.S. market. Wire fraud charges arose from the numerous wire transfers, as well as other interstate communications, the defendants made as they bought products from the manufacturers, transferred money among their own companies to facilitate the scheme, and then re-sold the products at higher prices to U.S. customers.

But the defendants lied. In a years-long scheme, they used their three companies to get those lower prices from manufacturers and resell the products at higher prices to U.S. customers—often the same distributors the victim companies were already selling their products to. Between 2019 and September 2023 alone, Baja Exporting and Specialty Foods International sold hundreds of millions of dollars of products to U.S. distributors; less than a tenth of one percent of their sales were to any Mexican retailer or distributor, and they did no business with prisons or rehab centers.Justice.gov

So basically they negotiated phony discounts by telling the manufacturer the products were going to Mexico, then repackaged/relabeled the products and sold them in the US at a far higher price, including to state prisons and rehab facilities. Worked pretty well, among other high-end purchases she and her co-defendant brother purchased a Ferrari F12 and a Lamborghini Huracan. Nice… if you could do it legally. She didn’t. Bank and mail fraud were used.

So what justified her pardon?

But a White House official, speaking on background, said the administration felt it was correcting an earlier wrong by pardoning Camberos, arguing that she and her brother were unfairly targeted and subject to a political prosecution under the administration of former President Biden.  LA Times

Seems we have heard that before. Like when Trump pardoned Kushner, or Biden pardoned his son (which cause outrage here, among other places.) So what makes this unusual? This is her SECOND Presidential forgiveness from Trump. Most people couldn’t dream of a Presidential pardon – why does she get two?

A full pardon carries real civic weight. It can restore voting, eligibility for public office, and the right to serve on a jury. It also lifts the federal bar on owning or possessing a firearm, unless some other law still applies. Employers, landlords, and licensing boards often treat a pardon as a major positive factor.  Edvigo

Oh, and it cancels any restitution the criminal was supposed to pay. Ever been a victim of a criminal who had to pay restitution? You’re lucky to get any repayment, much less all. Now her victims get nothing. Let’s look at the original crimes, when she and her husband were selling millions of bottles of counterfeit 5-Hour Energy.

According to prosecutors, between late 2011 through late 2012, the pair ordered more than 7 million fake labels and hundreds of thousands of phony display boxes. In the end, 4 million bottles of the counterfeit product were produced and sold.  Vice.com

Now, the couple faces the consequences of the years-long scheme. On June 20, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh sentenced Joseph and Adriana Shayota to 86 months and 26 months in prison, respectively. SupplySideSJ

So in 2011 she started committing fraud, kept it up until she got sentenced to 5 years, got Presidential clemency in 2021, started right back at it and was convicted a second time in 2025… a fourteen year run like that doesn’t show someone unfairly targeted, it shows a career criminal. Why does she get an almost unheard-of second Presidential intervention?

Category: Crime, Donald Trump