By Karen Freifeld
(Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s nominee for NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, was arrested on fraud charges in 2010 and faced lawsuits in two states for writing $2 million in bad checks to casinos, according to government records and court filings.
Isaacman is a billionaire pilot and astronaut who founded Shift4 Payments company as a teen-ager and commanded the first civilian space crew in 2021 aboard a SpaceX capsule.
Isaacman’s nomination is scheduled for a vote by the Senate Commerce committee on Wednesday.
In a Feb. 22, 2010 press release titled, “Nevada Fugitive Captured at Canadian Border,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it arrested Isaacman on a warrant for alleged fraud at the Washington state line. He was taken to a county jail for extradition to Nevada, whose Clark County, home to Las Vegas, had issued the felony warrant. No further detail on the alleged fraud was provided.
According to jail records, he was released the next day.
In a questionnaire in connection with his nomination to head the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Isaacman said he was returning from Vancouver in February 2010 when he was detained by CBP for “drawing and passing checks without sufficient funds.”
He said the arrest stemmed from a dispute with the Palms Casino resort in Las Vegas over a travel reimbursement the resort promised and failed to honor. Isaacman said he resolved the matter in less than 24 hours, and the charges were dismissed. The court records were sealed, he said.
A spokesperson for the Palms Casino declined comment.
(Reporting by Karen Freifeld. Additional reporting by Chris Prentice and Luc Cohen in New York and Joey Roulette in Washington. Editing by Chris Sanders and Chizu Nomiyama)
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