# Joseph Schwartz **Joseph Schwartz** is a former owner-operator of Skyline Healthcare, a nursing-home company that at its peak ran roughly 95 facilities across multiple states before collapsing amid unpaid wages, unpaid vendors, and deteriorating patient care. He pleaded guilty in a federal case to a scheme that withheld about **$38–39 million in employee payroll taxes** from the IRS and diverted the funds. [[Donald Trump]] **pardoned him in November 2025** — after he had paid lobbyists over $1 million to pursue clemency — as part of the [[Trump 2025 Pardon Spree]]. The case is a leading example of the spree's collision with the **state-law backstop**: despite the federal pardon, a court ordered Schwartz in December 2025 to report to an Arkansas prison to serve a state sentence for Medicaid fraud and tax evasion, and he remained on the hook for roughly $1.8 million in state restitution that no presidential pardon could erase. ProPublica documented that patient families were still owed millions the federal pardon extinguished. ## Cross-references - Clemency event: [[Trump 2025 Pardon Spree]] - State-law-backstop parallel: [[Steve Bannon Pardon and We Build the Wall Fraud]] - Mechanism: [[Pardons as Currency]] - Accountability frame: [[Elite Impunity]]