A New York lobbyist and attorney connected to a presidential pardon issued by Donald Trump in November has been charged with attempting to extort a former client and the client’s son over an alleged $500,000 debt.

Joshua Nass, 34, was arrested on Friday after being charged in federal court in Brooklyn with attempted Hobbs Act extortion. US justice department prosecutors contend that Nass threatened a client for payment that he claimed he was owed for his services.

Nass is alleged to have provided an unnamed individual with a phone number as well as addresses while instructing the individual to visit the client at his home. It was an effort to intimidate the client into paying up, as prosecutors put it.

According to prosecutors, Nass told the individual in question to “do anything and everything” to force to the payment, including “physically assaulting” the client’s son or “forcing him into a car with masked men and threatening him to make someone in [the son’s] family pay Nass”.

It is also alleged that Nass told the individual that he could not be a “human being” with the client’s son if the son rebuffed paying. Nass is alleged to have agreed to pay the individual “at least $15,000 for his continued efforts”.

“As alleged, Nass plotted the violent extortion of one of his own clients and hired an individual to ‘do anything and everything’ to force the client’s son to pay for services,” said a statement from US attorney Joseph Nocella Jr of the eastern district of New York.

FBI assistant director James Barnacle said that “rather than honestly representing his client, Joshua Nass allegedly chose to shake him down by hiring an enforcer to extort payment”.

Nass faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted as charged. He was scheduled to make an initial court appearance on Saturday.

Nass had a role in Trump’s 14 November 2025 pardon of Joseph Schwartz, who had been convicted in Arkansas over his ownership of a nursing-home empire that had failed to pay nearly $40m in employment and payroll taxes – and had been charged with Medicaid fraud.

Neither Schwartz nor his son are mentioned in the government’s press release.

But Nass conspicuously reported in a public filing that he was paid $100,000 toward the end of 2025 “for advocacy concerning executive clemency and post-conviction relief, including federal presidential pardon advocacy and subsequent efforts to obtain expedited parole and state-level relief in Arkansas”.

Separately, in documents pertaining to the extortion case against the attorney, prosecutors allege that the son of Nass’s client facilitated a $100,000 payment out of $600,000 owed for lobbying services.

Earlier in March, the New York Times reported that Schwartz had connected with Trump through Nass and his connections to pro-Israel evangelicals.

Nass told the outlet that “clemency reflects the belief that people are capable of redemption”. Referring to the numerous pardons Trump has issued during his second presidency, Nass added that Trump “has shown a willingness to give deserving individuals a second chance – and he should be commended for such”.

The case against Nass comes amid allegations that Trump’s system of clemency is one shaped by lobbyists, though the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, has rejected that assertion.

“Anyone spending money to lobby for pardons is foolishly wasting their money, and the president doesn’t even know who these so-called ‘lobbyists’ are,” Leavitt told the Times.