Santos faces 13 federal financial charges
Officials say he illegally pocketed jobless benefits
CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. — Representative George Santos, the freshman Republican congressman whose myriad falsehoods became both a scandal and a national punchline, was charged with a host of financial crimes in court papers unsealed Wednesday, including defrauding his donors, using their money for his personal benefit, and wrongfully claiming unemployment benefits.
Santos, 34, surrendered to federal authorities in the morning at the Alfonse M. D’Amato Federal Courthouse in this hamlet on Long Island. The freshman congressman, who announced his reelection bid last month, pleaded not guilty during his arraignment. The magistrate judge told him to relinquish his passport and ordered him released on $500,000 bond.
Appearing before a scrum of reporters and cameras outside the courthouse, Santos repeated his vow not to resign and said, “I will prove myself innocent.” He also called the investigation a “witch hunt,” echoing the language of former president Trump.
“I am going to fight my battle, I am going to deliver,” Santos said. “I am going to take care of clearing my name, and I look forward to doing that.”
Santos faces seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds, and two counts of lying to the House of Representatives on financial forms. Wire fraud, the most serious charge, carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison. If Santos is found guilty of multiple counts, a judge would decide whether he should serve his sentences concurrently or consecutively.
The congressman’s lawyer, Joe Murray, told reporters that he wants to meet with prosecutors and “share what we’ve learned and what we have. We have information that I think they would be interested to see.”
Wednesday’s arraignment, less than five months after authorities in the Eastern District of New York began their investigation, brought the Santos saga into a new, more serious phase. Several New York Republicans joined Democrats in intensifying their calls for Santos to leave Congress. But House GOP leaders signaled they would take no immediate action.
House majority leader Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican, noted that Santos previously stepped down from his committee assignments amid the outcry over his fabrications in his biography, but he did not respond directly to a reporter’s question about whether the freshman lawmaker should resign. A fellow New York Republican, however, said that is exactly what should happen.
“I said he should resign in December. I said he should resign in January. He should have resigned yesterday,” Representative Marcus J. Molinaro said in a text message to the Post. “Perhaps he will resign soon. Either way — and any way — there’s a clock counting down and trust and justice will come to George Santos.”
Some of the details in the nearly 20-page indictment — about Santos’s dealings with would-be donors and false statements on his ethics disclosures — had been revealed in earlier reporting. But the alleged unemployment fraud is new.
According to prosecutors, Santos falsely claimed to have been unemployed in summer 2020 when he applied for benefits through the New York State Department of Labor. He continued to falsely certify his unemployment through the following spring, prosecutors alleged, and received more than $24,000 in benefits funded by the Treasury Department as part of expanded social programs introduced by Congress in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Santos was ineligible for the benefits, according to the indictment, which states that he was employed as a regional director for a Florida investment firm during that period. The firm goes unnamed in the indictment, but its details match those of a company called Harbor City Capital, which was forced to shut down in 2021 after the Securities and Exchange Commission called it a “classic Ponzi scheme.”
“Taken together, the allegations in the indictment charge Santos with relying on repeated dishonesty and deception to ascend to the halls of Congress and enrich himself,” US Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement. “He used political contributions to line his pockets, unlawfully applied for unemployment benefits that should have gone to New Yorkers who had lost their jobs due to the pandemic, and lied to the House of Representatives.”
The lies Santos told voters in a district stretching from parts of Long Island to Queens — about his ancestry, his education, and his work history — largely escaped national attention until after his November victory. Once they were revealed on a broad scale, Santos apologized for what he called “résumé embellishment” but rebuffed calls to give up his seat.