Trump Pardons Virginia Sheriff Convicted of a Bribes-for-Badges Scheme
On May 27, 2025, President Donald Trump (R) issued an unconditional pardon for Scott Jenkins, 53, a former Northern Virginia sheriff who was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for 12 counts of conspiracy, fraud, and bribery. The pardon reportedly came hours before Jenkins was due to report at the prison. As PLN reported, Jenkins received a jury conviction in December 2024 on charges related to taking bribes totaling more than $75,000 [See: PLN, Dec. 2024, p.61].
The ex-sheriff accepted the money in the form of campaign contributions from at least eight people, including two undercover FBI agents. In exchange, he appointed several local businessmen as “auxiliary deputy sheriffs” within his department. These positions allowed Jenkins to issue the men badges, identification cards, guns, and body armor, as well as grant them the ability to avoid traffic tickets and carry concealed firearms without a permit. Two of the appointees—Frederick Gumbinner and James Metcalf—had previously pleaded guilty and were sentenced in March 2025 to three years’ probation along with fines of $100,000 and $75,000, respectively.
Throughout the trial, Jenkins maintained his innocence despite a trove of photos, audio recordings, and videos that prosecutors claimed showed him accepting the bribes. One image presented to jurors featured Jenkins receiving $15,000 in a gift bag outside of a steak house. After Jenkin’s conviction, he appealed directly to Trump to intervene in his case. “I believe if [Trump] heard the information,” Jenkins said in April during a webinar hosted by the Constitutional Sherriffs and Peace Officers Association, “I know he would help if he knew my story.”
The corrupt former sheriff’s pardon is yet another example of a flurry of contentious pardons that Trump has issued since taking office. Other than granting clemency to the 1,500 defendants involved in the January 6, 2021, attack on Congress, most of Trump’s pardons so far have focused on political allies convicted of financial crimes, with recipients including: Ross Ulbricht, founder of the online drug marketplace the Silk Road; Rod Blagojevich, the former Illinois governor who tried to sell the Senate seat left vacant by Barack Obama; and Michele Fiore, a Nevada Republican who was convicted for stealing $70,000 she had collected for a police memorial. Trump announced Jenkins’s pardon on Truth Social, writing that he had been “dragged through HELL” and that he “doesn’t deserve to spend a single day in jail.” See: United States v. Jenkins, USDC (W.D. Va.),Case No. 3:23-cr-00011.
Additional sources: NBC4 Washington