“I didn’t sleep a wink. Why? Because I was with MS-13 gang members.”
That is how businessman Terren Peizer remembers the night he spent in jail after being arrested in 2023. After landing at Los Angeles International Airport with his fiancée, Peizer was swarmed by authorities and cuffed on his hands, feet, and ankles. He had just been charged with insider trading.
Then his situation went from bad to worse. In 2024, a federal jury convicted Peizer of selling his own shares in the healthcare company that counted him as its chairman and CEO. Then, in 2025, a judge sentenced Peizer to 42 months in prison and ordered him to pay $18 million. Federal prosecutors hailed his takedown in a press release and pledged to “combat sophisticated frauds that exploit our securities markets.”
But with the help of President Donald Trump, Peizer is now a free man. While he was appealing the conviction, the president issued Peizer “a full and unconditional pardon,” as the decree put it in January. Since then, the original indictment was dismissed by the Justice Department, which also supported Peizer’s request for reversal of his conviction. A judge approved that request on Wednesday.
“I believed that my case was such obvious lawfare” by the Joe Biden administration “that the merits would prevail,” said Peizer, 66, from his home in Puerto Rico. “I couldn’t get a fair trial in LA because all the jury heard every day was ‘rich white guy.’ ”
