Emory Jones

WHAT THE RECORD SHOWS

The Justice Department list records his pardon on September 8, 2026, five days after the other twenty-nine grants in this batch, and lists him as Emory Clash Jones. It gives his sentencing date as October 15, 2000 and his sentence as 151 months' imprisonment, as amended, plus five years' supervised release.

White House pardon czar Alice Marie Johnson named Jones when she announced the thirty grants. Former U.S. Pardon Attorney Liz Oyer, who could identify only eleven of the thirty recipients when she wrote on September 8, recorded that Johnson's post named just four of them, Jones among them, and described Jones as a close associate of Jay-Z. Reuters, citing Johnson's post, reported that Jones served nearly sixteen years in federal prison on drug charges; Reuters also reported that Jones was released in 2010 after Jay-Z wrote a letter to a judge on his behalf seeking a sentence reduction, and that Jones has since worked as an executive at Jay-Z's Roc Nation and co-founded the Paper Planes clothing brand. The Ledger ran all thirty names in this grant against FEC contribution records for the 2024 and 2026 cycles and found no contribution it could tie to a recipient.