Marc Rich

GENEVA — He was a wheeler-dealer pardoned by another consummate dealmaker, a working-class Jewish boy who left Belgium to escape the Nazis and rose to become the billionaire “King of Commodities.”

Marc Rich’s connections to the rich and powerful not only made him fabulously wealthy but when he was indicted on a charge of fraud, racketeering and tax evasion on a grand scale, they helped secure him a pardon from Bill Clinton.

That triggered a political firestorm from critics who alleged Rich bought his pardon through donations that his ex-wife had made to the Democratic Party.

Rich died Wednesday of a stroke at a hospital in Lucerne, near his home for decades. He was 78.