Former US Representative for New York’s Third Congressional District George Santos pleaded guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft on Monday.
The US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York said that from June 2020 to April 2021, Santos fraudulently claimed to be unemployed to obtain federal unemployment assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic, receiving more than $24,000 in unemployment insurance benefits. Then in his September 2022 House Disclosures, Santos drastically inflated his income and assets while failing to disclose his unemployment insurance benefits and income during his benefit collection.
Additionally, Santos executed a fraudulent scheme sometime between July 2020 and October 2022 to “steal the personal identity and financial information of his campaign contributors.” Afterward, he would frequently charge his contributors’ credit cards to transfer money to his personal bank account and to fund his and other candidates’ campaigns.
Since September 2022, Santos also scammed $25,000 from donors who thought that “their money would be used to help elect Santos to the House,” when Santos used much of the money for personal expenses such as designer clothing, discharging personal debts, and transferring money to associates.
When Santos was running as a House candidate during the 2022 election cycle, he successfully defrauded the Federal Election Commission and a national party committee. He overstated his campaign’s fundraising numbers “to ensure that Santos and his campaign qualified for a program administered by the national party committee, pursuant to which the [committee] would provide financial and logistical support to Santos’s campaign.”
After pleading guilty Santos shared with reporters outside the courthouse:
It is clear to me now that I allowed ambition to cloud my judgment, leading me to make decisions that were unethical and guilty … To my family, friends, and supporters, and the people of New York’s third congressional district, I offer my deepest apologies … [You] trusted me to represent you with honor and to uphold the values that are essential to our democracy, and in that regard, I failed you … Moving forward, I am dedicated to making amends for the wrongs I have committed … This plea is not just an admission of guilt. It is an acknowledgment that I need to be held accountable like any other American that breaks the law.
Satons’s sentencing is scheduled for February 7, 2025. He will face a sentence of two to twenty-two years imprisonment and has agreed in his plea to pay $373,749.97 in restitution and $205,002.97 in forfeiture.
George Santos served as a member of the US House of Representatives starting from January 3, 2023. Santos was initially indicted on May 10, 2023, by a US grand jury on thirteen counts of fraud, larceny and campaign offenses. The grand jury amended Santos’s indictment to twenty-three counts of fraud, larceny and campaign offenses on October 10, 2023. Santos initially pleaded not guilty to all charges. After Santos’s indictment, the House attempted to expel Santos as a representative on November 1, 2023. However, it failed to acquire the constitutionally required two-thirds vote. A month later the House acquired enough votes to expel Santos.
