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Florida man to serve 35 years for fake Trump pardon, deed theft, murder-for-hire
Alexander Leszczynski offered to pay $30,000 to kill the victims of his deed theft
From left: Alexander Leszczynski (left) and Donald Trump (right) (Getty, Pinellas County Jail)
Next time, don’t use a fake pardon for real crimes.
A federal judge slapped a Florida man with a combined 35-year prison sentence for deed theft, multiple fraud charges, faking a pardon from former president Donald Trump, and attempting to hire a hitman to kill his victims.
Alexander Leszczynski thought he could get the fraud case against him dropped, if only he could get rid of the prosecution’s star witnesses –– two victims of his deed theft scheme. According to a press release from the Department of Justice, Leszczynski made the mistake of telling an informant he was looking for someone to take care of the problem, and that he had a $45,000 budget to do so in August of last year.
A month later, that informant put Leszczynski in touch with an undercover agent posing as a hitman, and they agreed he would pay $30,000 for the two murders, the release shows. On Monday, U.S. District Judge James S. Moody, Jr. sentenced Leszczynski to serve 17 years and 6 months for the murder-for-hire plot, in addition to the 17 years and 6 months he would already be serving for deed, check and Payroll Protection Plan fraud, the release shows.
It bookends Leszczynski’s years-long, multimillion-dollar fraud spree. The Department of Justice reports that the 24-year-old resident of North Redington Beach, Florida, filed fraudulent deeds transferring to himself 10 properties worth a combined $300 million. Leszczynski harassed property owners and attorneys who sought to correct the deeds.
He didn’t stop there. Love & Bliss, Aura, Inc., King Neptune, Inuyasha, Inc., Rhone, Inc., King Cobra, Inc. –– these were the names of the fake religious organizations the fraudster used to apply for PPP loans worth an estimated $1.3 million. Leszczynski also attempted to cash $3 million of worthless checks into the Love & Bliss account, a scheme known as check kiting.
When law enforcement froze $337,000 in one of Leszczynski’s accounts, he got creative, and forged a pardon letter with a fake Trump signature. Ironically, the former president is himself facing fraud charges. If only he could pardon himself, too.