Last week, Trump commuted the sentence of Fred Davis Clark Jr, the Former CEO of Cay Clubs Resorts and Marinas of Key West, Fla and the mastermind behind a $300 million fraud scheme involving condos in Clearwater and other vacation spots.
Now, one of his supporters who was robbed of his life savings by Clark is speaking out.
To 71-year-old Kimball Pugmire, Clark’s 40 year sentence felt like justice.
“I thought well he will probably die in prison and he deserved it. I was thinking that’s justice because now he can sit there the rest of his life contemplating what he’s done to other people,” Pugmire told Tampa Bay Times on Monday.
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He was forced to foreclose on his home, and lose the subdivision he had already began developing in Utah after it became clear that he was never going to receive leaseback payments after purchasing two units in Clearwater’s Grand Venezia and four in Las Vegas in 2006.
Pugmire said he was shocked when he was contacted by the Justice Department last week, telling him that Clark was being released after a commutation from Donald Trump, the president Pugmire voted for twice.
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He does not understand how Trump could wipe away the prison sentence “of a lifetime crook.”
“I had been trying to forget all this, but it makes you wonder, even being a Trump supporter, about his honesty,” Pugmire said.
At 71, he still works building homes, years after he dreamed of retiring.
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Trump issued the commutation earlier this month writing: “The ends of justice do not require (Clark) to remain confined until his currently projected release date of August 14, 2048 and the safety of the community will not be compromised if he is released.”
Clark was convicted in 2015 of three counts of bank fraud, three counts of making a false statement to a financial institution and obstruction of the Securities and Exchange Commission. He served six years out of his 40-year prison sentence before it was commuted.
