Trump Grants Full Pardon for Former Virginia Sheriff

Scott Jenkins, former sheriff of Virginia’s Culpeper County, was sentenced to 10 years in prison following a federal bribery conviction.

Culpeper County Sheriff Scott Jenkins speaks during a gun rights rally organized by The Virginia Citizens Defense League on Capitol Square near the state capital building in Richmond, Va., on Jan. 20, 2020. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

President Donald Trump on Monday said he has pardoned Scott Jenkins, the former sheriff of Virginia’s Culpeper County, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison following a federal bribery conviction.

Trump made the announcement on his Truth Social platform, calling Jenkins a victim of “an overzealous Biden Department of Justice” who “doesn’t deserve to spend a single day in jail.”

A federal jury in December 2024 found Jenkins guilty on all 12 counts of conspiracy, fraud, and bribery in connection with his 2023 reelection campaign. Prosecutors said he accepted at least $72,000 in cash bribes in exchange for badges through the county’s auxiliary sheriff’s deputy program.

According to court documents, several individuals, including three co-defendants and two undercover FBI agents, were promised official Culpeper County Sheriff’s Office badges and identification, despite not being trained, vetted, or performing any law enforcement duties.

Jenkins maintained his innocence, while his three co-defendants pleaded guilty. His defense argued that the payments were legitimate campaign contributions and that it was within his authority as a sheriff to designate auxiliary deputy sheriffs.

In March, Jenkins was sentenced to 10 years in prison and had filed an appeal.

Trump came to Jenkins’s defense on Monday, accusing the judge who presided over the case of being politically motivated and excluding exculpatory evidence in favor of the sheriff during the trial.

The judges allegedly “allow into evidence what they feel like, not what is mandated under the Constitution and Rules of Evidence,” the president wrote.

Jenkins led law enforcement in Culpeper County for over a decade before the prosecution that ultimately cost him reelection in 2023. First elected in 2011, he served three terms, twice as an independent and once as a Republican, in the largely rural county of approximately 52,000 residents.

Over the years, Jenkins emerged as a consistently conservative local leader when it comes to issues such as Second Amendment rights, immigration enforcement, and public health mandates. His profile grew as political tension escalated between Virginia’s conservative rural communities and left-leaning progressive lawmakers in Richmond.

In December 2019, Jenkins joined more than 30 other Virginia sheriffs in declaring his county a “Second Amendment sanctuary” and vowed to deputize residents if the state Legislature passed new gun control laws that he said would infringe on their Second Amendment rights.

“We the sheriffs, especially the sheriffs in rural environments, which is the majority of America, we know what it takes to protect our citizens and how short we are on staffing to do so, and that people need the ability to protect themselves and own the weapons they’ve had all along,” he said at that time in an interview on EpochTV’s “Crossroads” program. “It’s up to the sheriffs to take a firm stand, to push back and say, ‘We won’t allow it.’”

Months earlier, Jenkins prevailed in a class-action lawsuit brought by an illegal immigrant who was held up at the request of federal immigration officers. At that time, Jenkins’s office was one of the few in Virginia to operate under a cooperation agreement allowing local police to assist with federal immigration enforcement.

In 2020, Jenkins made headlines again by refusing to enforce COVID-19 lockdown orders issued by then-Gov. Ralph Northam.

“The governor does have the right to enact regulations during a state of emergency and I get that, but the Constitution doesn’t go away just because of that,” Jenkins told The Epoch Times at that time. “We won’t be used to enforce an edict or regulation by a governor, health director, or anyone else.”

Jenkins had issued a personal plea for clemency last month during a webinar hosted by the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, NBC4 Washington reported, saying he lacked the funds to pursue his appeal and believed Trump would intervene if he knew the full story and the evidence he was unable to present in court.

Since his return to the White House, Trump has pardoned a range of people whom he said were targeted by a politicized Justice Department during the Biden administration.

Jenkins “is a wonderful person, who was persecuted by the radical left,” the president wrote on Monday. “He will not be going to jail tomorrow, but instead will have a wonderful and productive life.”