Charles Kushner (born May 16, 1954) is an American

real estate developer Real estate development, or property development, is a business process, encompassing activities that range from the renovation and re- lease of existing buildings to the purchase of raw land and the sale of developed land or parcels to othe ...

, former federal inmate, and disbarred former attorney. He founded Kushner Companies in 1985. In 2005, he was convicted of illegal campaign contributions,

tax evasion Tax evasion is an illegal attempt to defeat the imposition of taxes by individuals, corporations, trusts, and others. Tax evasion often entails the deliberate misrepresentation of the taxpayer's affairs to the tax authorities to reduce the tax ...

, and

witness tampering Witness tampering is the act of attempting to improperly influence, alter or prevent the testimony of witnesses within criminal or civil proceedings. Witness tampering and reprisals against witnesses in organized crime cases have been a difficul ...

and was sentenced to two years imprisonment, which he served in the

Federal Prison Camp, Montgomery The Federal Prison Camp, Montgomery (FPC Montgomery) is a minimum-security United States federal prison for male inmates in Montgomery, Alabama. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice ...

. As a convicted felon he was also disbarred in three states. He later received a federal pardon issued by President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...

on December 23, 2020. His son

Jared Kushner Jared Corey Kushner (born January 10, 1981) is an American businessman and investor. He served as a senior advisor to 45th U.S. president Donald Trump, his father-in-law. Since leaving the White House, Kushner founded Affinity Partners, a pri ...

is the husband of

Ivanka Trump Ivana Marie "Ivanka" Trump (; born October 30, 1981) is an American businesswoman and the first daughter of Donald Trump, 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. She was a senior advisor in his administration, and also was the ...

and son-in-law of former President

, during whose presidential administration he served as senior advisor from 2017 to 2021. He has 3 other children including

Joshua Kushner Joshua Kushner (born June 12, 1985) is an American billionaire businessman, heir and investor. He is the founder and managing partner of the venture capital firm Thrive Capital, co-founder of Oscar Health, and the son of billionaire real estate ...

and he is the father-in-law of

Karlie Kloss Karlie Elizabeth Kloss (born August 3, 1992) is an American fashion model. ''Vogue Paris'' declared her one of the "top 30 models of the 2000s" when she was 17. Kloss was a Victoria's Secret Angel from 2013 until 2015; she resigned to study at ...

Early life

Charles Kushner was born on May 16, 1954, to Joseph Berkowitz and Rae Kushner, Jewish

Holocaust survivors Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies before and during World War II in Europe and North Africa. There is no universally accep ...

born in eastern Poland who came to America from the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

in 1949. At birth, he was named Chanan, after a maternal uncle who died in a concentration camp during the Holocaust. He grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey, with his elder brother Murray Kushner and sister Esther Schulder. His father worked as a construction worker, builder, and real estate investor. Kushner graduated from the Hofstra University School of Law in 1979.

Career

Kushner Companies

In 1985, he began managing his father's portfolio of 4,000 New Jersey apartments. He founded Kushner Companies – headquartered in

Florham Park, New Jersey Florham Park is a borough in Morris County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States census, the borough's population was 11,696, In 1999, he won the

Ernst & Young Ernst & Young Global Limited, trade name EY, is a multinational professional services partnership headquartered in London, England. EY is one of the largest professional services networks in the world. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and Pricewat ...

New Jersey Entrepreneur of the Year award. At the time, Kushner Companies had grown to more than 10,000 residential apartments, a homebuilding business, commercial and industrial properties, and a

community bank A community bank is a depository institution that is typically locally owned and operated. Community banks tend to focus on the needs of the businesses and families where the bank holds branches and offices. Lending decisions are made by people w ...

."1999 New Jersey Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year(R) Award Recipients Announced"
Ernst & Young press release, June 17, 1999. Retrieved September 28, 2011.

Criminal conviction

On June 30, 2004, Kushner was fined $508,900 by the

Federal Election Commission The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is an independent regulatory agency of the United States whose purpose is to enforce campaign finance law in United States federal elections. Created in 1974 through amendments to the Federal Election Cam ...

for contributing to Democratic political campaigns in the names of his partnerships when he lacked authorization to do so. In 2005, following an investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey, U.S. Attorney

Chris Christie Christopher James Christie (born September 6, 1962) is an American politician, lawyer, political commentator, lobbyist, and former federal prosecutor who served as the 55th governor of New Jersey from 2010 to 2018. Christie, who was born in N ...

negotiated a plea agreement with him, under which he

pleaded guilty In legal terms, a plea is simply an answer to a claim made by someone in a criminal case under common law using the adversarial system. Colloquially, a plea has come to mean the assertion by a defendant at arraignment, or otherwise in response ...

to 18 counts of illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and

.Smothers, Ronald (March 5, 2005)
"Democratic Donor Receives Two-Year Prison Sentence"
''The New York Times''. Retrieved February 24, 2011.Sullivan, John (August 22, 2004)

''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

''. Retrieved December 26, 2020. The witness-tampering charge arose from Kushner's act of retaliation against William Schulder, his sister Esther's husband, who was cooperating with federal investigators against Kushner. Kushner hired a prostitute he knew to seduce his brother-in-law, arranged to record a sexual encounter between the two, and had the tape sent to his sister.John Cloud
So, Did You Get My Gift?
''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'' (July 18, 2004). He was sentenced to two years in prison. He served 14 months at

in AlabamaSommer, Allison Kaplan (March 1, 2016).
Meet the Kushners: The Feuding Real Estate Dynasty That Links Donald Trump and Chris Christie
. '' Haaretz''. Retrieved November 19, 2016.Lizzie Widdicombe, vanka and Jared's Power Play: How the patrician couple came to have an outsized influence on a populist Presidential campaign ''New Yorker'' (August 22, 2016). before being sent to a

halfway house A halfway house is an institute for people with criminal backgrounds or substance use disorder problems to learn (or relearn) the necessary skills to re-integrate into society and better support and care for themselves. As well as serving as a ...

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area. He was released from prison on August 25, 2006. As a convicted felon, he was also disbarred and prohibited from practicing law in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. In her book '' Too Much and Never Enough'' President Trump's niece Mary L. Trump wrote that Charles Kushner had given a speech in which he claimed that Ivanka Trump had only made herself worthy of inclusion in his family by committing to convert to Judaism, which Mary Trump found "a bit rich" given Kushner's own past as a convicted felon.

Pardon by Donald Trump

Kushner received a federal pardon on December 23, 2020, by his son's father-in-law, Donald Trump, citing his record of "reform" and "charity."

New York City real estate

After being released from prison, Kushner shifted his business activities from New Jersey to New York City. In early 2007, Kushner Companies bought the

666 Fifth Avenue 660 Fifth Avenue (formerly 666 Fifth Avenue and the Tishman Building) is a 41-story office building on the west side of Fifth Avenue between 52nd and 53rd Streets in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The office tower was d ...

building in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

for $1.8 billion.Bagli, Charles V. (December 7, 2006)
"A Big Deal, Even in Manhattan: A Tower Goes for $1.8 Billion"
''The New York Times''. Retrieved November 12, 2007. In August 2018, Brookfield Properties signed a 99-year lease for the property, paying $1.286 billion and effectively taking full ownership of the building. As of the end of 2016, Kushner and his family were estimated to have a net worth of $1.8 billion. He has employed two fellow inmates he became acquainted with in prison.

Donations

Charles Kushner met personally with Harvard's president and in 1998 donated $2.5 million to Harvard. His son, Jared, was then beginning his senior year of high school where he was not a particularly good student with test scores below Ivy League standards. Jared Kushner was admitted to the Harvard freshman class of 1999. Before 2016, Kushner was a donor to the Democratic Party. He serves on the boards of Touro College,

Stern College for Women The Stern College for Women (SCW) is the undergraduate women's college of arts and sciences of Yeshiva University. It is located at the university's Israel Henry Beren Campus in the Murray Hill section of Manhattan. The college provides progra ...

Rabbinical College of America The Rabbinical College of America is a Chabad Lubavitch Chasidic yeshiva in Morristown, New Jersey. The Yeshiva is under the direction of Rabbi Moshe Herson. The growth of the Yeshiva college has had a significant cultural effect on the commu ...

, and the United Jewish Communities. Kushner has made other donations to

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

, Stern College, and United Cerebral Palsy. He donated to the Seryl and Charles Kushner Maternity Unit at St. Barnabas Medical Center in

Livingston, New Jersey Livingston is a township in Essex County, New Jersey. As of the 2010 U.S. census, the township's population was 29,366, reflecting an increase of 1,975 (+7.2%) from the 27,391 counted in the 2000 Census. In 2019, the Population Estimates Prog ...

. He contributed to the funding of two schools,

Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy The Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy is a coeducational Modern Orthodox Yeshiva Day School located in Livingston, New Jersey. The Academy is dedicated towards developmental education and religious growth, for both boys and girls from Pre-Kindergart ...

and

Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School / Yeshivat HaTichonit Beit Yosef is a four-year private Modern Orthodox yeshiva high school located in Livingston, New Jersey, United States. The school serves students living in areas ranging from Livingston, We ...

, also in Livingston, and named them after his parents."Mini Bio: Rae Kushner"
Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation. Retrieved September 28, 2011. Kushner Hall is a building that is named after him on the Hofstra University campus. The campus of Jerusalem's

Shaare Zedek Medical Center The Shaare Zedek Medical Center ( he, מרכז רפואי שערי צדק, ''Merkaz Refu'i Sha'arei Tzedek'') (lit. "Gates of Justice") is a large teaching hospital in Jerusalem established in 1902, It affiliated with Hebrew University of Jerusal ...

is named the "Seryl and Charles Kushner Campus" in honor of their donation of $20 million. In August 2015, Kushner donated $100,000 to

's Make America Great Again PAC, a super PAC supporting Trump's 2016 campaign for the presidency. Kushner and his wife also hosted a reception for Trump at their Jersey Shore seaside mansion in Long Branch.Maggie Haberman
Donald Trump Pays a Visit to His Not-So-Poor Relations
''New York Times'' (August 23, 2016).

References

External links

Kushner Companies
in the FBI's FOIA Library ''The Vault'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Kushner, Charles 1954 births Living people 20th-century American businesspeople 21st-century American businesspeople American prisoners and detainees Prisoners and detainees of the United States federal government American businesspeople convicted of crimes American chief executives American Orthodox Jews American people convicted of tax crimes American people of Belarusian-Jewish descent American political fundraisers American real estate businesspeople Businesspeople from New Jersey Jewish American philanthropists Charles Maurice A. Deane School of Law alumni Disbarred American lawyers New York (state) lawyers New Jersey lawyers Pennsylvania lawyers Businesspeople from Elizabeth, New Jersey People from Livingston, New Jersey New York University Stern School of Business alumni Real estate and property developers American company founders Recipients of American presidential pardons