Clinton favors 3 with Florida connections

By Times staff and wire reports

© St. Petersburg Times, published January 21, 2001

One of the presidential pardons issued Saturday went to Almon Glenn Braswell, the head of a controversial vitamin company who donated thousands of dollars to Republicans over the past few years.

Another went to William A. Borders Jr., a once-prominent Washington attorney who was convicted of conspiracy in a Miami racketeering case with then-U.S. District Judge Alcee L. Hastings.

Former Palm Beach society lawyer Arnold Paul Prosperi, facing eight years in prison for filing false tax returns and using fake bank records to hide the embezzlement of millions of dollars from a client, also is a free man thanks to his college buddy, Bill Clinton.

Braswell was sentenced to three years in federal prison in 1983 after he was convicted of mail fraud and perjury charges stemming from his sale of a supposed cure for baldness and a product that advertised to remove cellulite.

Since then, Braswell and his companies, including Gero Vita International, have been repeatedly investigated by federal authorities for alleged violations of food and drug laws.

In September, a day after the St. Petersburg Times described his background and contributions he had made to the Florida Republican Party and George W. Bush, the party and Bush returned $175,000 to Braswell.

A spokesman for Bush said the presidential candidate did not know of Braswell's felony convictions and did not want to take money from a felon.

Party officials said Braswell, who has homes in Miami and California, was described to them as the millionaire owner of a vitamin company.

No explanation of the pardon accompanied the list of names released Saturday just minutes before Clinton left office.

While Hastings was acquitted, Borders, a former president of the National Bar Association, was sentenced to a five-year prison term and disbarred. Borders also was held in contempt of court for refusing to testify during Hastings' criminal and Senate impeachment trials. Hastings is a U.S. representative from South Florida.

Prosperi, 52, of Hobe Sound was convicted of filing tax returns in 1989 and 1990 that didn't report $1.4-million he took from the business of client Patrick Donovan, an Irish citizen.

Prosperi, who attended Georgetown University with Clinton when they were undergraduates during the 1960s, organized Clinton's first trip to Palm Beach County as president in 1995 and hosted Hillary Rodham Clinton during Clinton's 1992 campaign.

Prosperi also organized a campaign to raise $425,000 to refurbish the White House, donating $45,000 through the White House Historical Association.

-- Information from the Associated Press and Cox News Service was used in this report.

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