Former Rep. George Santos pleads to identity theft and wire fraud
Former Rep. George Santos (R-NY) Photo: Video screenshot
Gay ex-Rep. George Santos, (R-NY), has pleaded to two federal felony charges of wire His sentencing is set for February 7, 2020. He faces up to 8 years in prison. Santos must also pay approximately $205,000 criminal forfeiture and nearly $374,000 restitution. Santos told reporters outside the courthouse that he had allowed ambition to cloud his judgment and led him to make unethical decisions. “Pleading guilty was a step that I never thought I would take. But it’s the right thing to be doing. It’s not only a recognition of my misrepresentations to others, but more profoundly, it is my own recognition of the lies I told myself over these past years.”
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Santos entered his plea during a pre-trial conference on Monday in front of U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert in the Eastern District of New York. Santos, by pleading guilty to the charges, admitted that he used another person’s credit card and identity for his personal gain. Santos initially pleaded “not guilty” to all charges, calling them a “baseless” witch hunt. Santos initially pleaded “not guilty” to all charges, calling them a “baseless” “witch hunt.”
Discussing the deal with CBS News, David Schwartz, a New York-based criminal defense attorney, said, “One thing for certain, he will be getting a lot less of a harsh sentence by pleading guilty right now, by accepting responsibility and being remorseful, than he would have if he went to trial.”
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Former Rep. Peter King (R-NY) told the aforementioned news outlet, “Certainly, it’s not in the public’s benefit to go through that whole charade. To me, it’s better to have him gone. Indeed, the public deserves to know how a travesty of this magnitude could have happened at the highest level of government.”
Last October, he pleaded not guilty to another ten federal charges, which included allegations that he stole donors’ identities and fraudulently charged tens of thousands of dollars to his own donors’ credit cards, faking a $500,000 loan to his own campaign, filing false campaign finance reports reflecting fake contributions from real people who didn’t give their permission, embezzling cash from his company, and conspiring with his former campaign treasurer to falsify donation totals to hit fundraising targets, among other offenses.
Santos’ trial was originally scheduled for September 9, 2024.
He began feeling increased pressure to take a plea deal after his own former campaign finance chief, Nancy Marks, and fundraiser, Sam Miele, both pleaded guilty to related charges.
Marks said Santos falsified campaign finance reports “to make it look like he had a well-funded campaign, which might attract other donors,” she said, according to the Associated Press. She also said that she gave the Federal Elections Commission a fake list of donors, listing the names of real people who had neither donated nor given his campaign permission to use their names.[The public]Pressure for a plea deal mounted even more after November 16, 2023. The House Ethics Committee released a report on November 16, 2023, accusing Santos for illegally using campaign funds to purchase luxury items, OnlyFans subscription Santos claimed that his largely fake campaign biography — which he previously admitted fabricating due to “stupidity” and “insecurity” — Santos claimed that his largely fake campaign biography — which he previously admitted fabricating due to “stupidity” and “insecurity” — was actually falsified by an unnamed “former campaign staffer.”
Santos has provided no proof to back up his previous biographical claims that his grandparents escaped the Holocaust, that he attended the Horace Mann preparatory school, that his mother died in connection to the September 11th terrorist attacks, or that he lost four employees in the June 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting.
Santos was part of Rio’s drag scene in the late 2000s (despite initially claiming that he was never a drag queen). Santos initially denied a claim of check fraud, but later admitted to it. Some have questioned whether he married his ex-wife just so that she could obtain U.S. citizenship.After joining Congress, Santos cosponsored a bill to roll back LGBTQ+ civil rights and one to ban LGBTQ+ books from schools. He also made public statements against transgender people and the so-called “radical rainbow mafia.” Additionally, he said that LGBTQ+ families “create troubled individuals.”
Santos said last March that he would leave the Republican Party to run for congressional re-election as an independent in New York’s 1st District. He dropped the plan in April last year, claiming that he did not want to “hand over the House to Democrats” by stealing votes from Republican incumbent Rep
