A former partner at the law firm Nixon Peabody convicted for his role obstructing an investigation into a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme was among the latest and final recipients of a pardon from departing President Donald Trump, who used his clemency power broadly to benefit corrupt politicians, scheming corporate executives and individuals with personal or political connections to him.

David Tamman had been convicted in 2012 of doctoring financial documents that were subject to a federal investigation into a Ponzi scheme that prosecutors said defrauded investors out of $22 million. In 2013, a federal judge in California sentenced him to seven years in prison for conspiring with a client—John Farahi, the founder of a Beverly Hills-based financial firm—to obstruct an investigation the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was conducting into the fraud scheme.

At the time of his conviction, a representative for Nixon Peabody said Tamman had "betrayed our trust, and failed to live up to the ethical standards our firm demands."