By Michael V. Cusenza
For years now, disgraced former U.S. Rep. George Santos performed his best Fred Astaire impression while dancing around the blatantly obvious truth: he’s a fraud.
He will soon be afforded the opportunity to dance his way into a federal prison cell, because on Monday, in federal court in Central Islip, Santos, 36, pleaded guilty to committing wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
Santos was initially charged in May 2023, and a superseding indictment charging Santos with additional crimes was returned in October 2023.
The counts to which Santos pleaded guilty relate to the following criminal scheme, as set forth in the superseding indictment:
The Party Program Scheme
During the 2022 election cycle, Santos was a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in New York’s 3rd Congressional District. Nancy Marks, who pleaded guilty on Oct. 5, 2023 to related conduct, was the treasurer for his principal congressional campaign committee, Devolder-Santos for Congress. During this election cycle, Santos and Marks devised and executed a fraudulent scheme to obtain money for the campaign by submitting materially false reports to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on behalf of the campaign, in which they inflated the campaign’s fundraising numbers for the purpose of misleading the FEC, a national party committee, and the public.
Specifically, the purpose of the scheme was to ensure that Santos and his campaign qualified for a program administered by the national party committee, pursuant to which the national party committee would provide financial and logistical support to Santos’s campaign. To qualify for the program, Santos had to demonstrate, among other things, that his congressional campaign had raised at least $250,000 from third-party contributors in a single quarter.
To create the public appearance that his campaign had met that financial benchmark and was otherwise financially viable, Santos and Marks agreed to falsely report to the FEC that at least 11 of their family members had made significant financial contributions to the campaign. In fact, Santos and Marks both knew that these individuals had neither made the reported contributions nor given authorization for their personal information to be included in such false public reports. In addition, Santos and Marks knew that the national party committee relied on FEC fundraising data to evaluate candidates’ qualification for the program, and agreed to falsely report to the FEC that Santos had loaned the campaign significant sums of money, when, in fact, Santos had not made the reported loans and, at the time the loans were reported, did not have the funds necessary to make such loans. These falsely reported loans included a $500,000 loan, when in fact Santos had less than $8,000 in his personal and business bank accounts.
Through the execution of this scheme, Santos and Marks ensured that Santos met the necessary financial benchmarks to qualify for the program administered by the national party committee. As a result of qualifying for the program, the congressional campaign received significant financial support.
As part of his plea agreement, Santos stipulated that he had engaged in the following additional criminal conduct, as set forth in the superseding indictment and other court filings, and agreed that this criminal conduct will be considered by the Court at the time of sentencing:
The Credit Card Fraud Scheme
Between approximately July 2020 and October 2022, Santos devised and executed a fraudulent scheme to steal the personal identity and financial information of contributors to his campaign. He then charged contributors’ credit cards repeatedly, without their authorization. Because of these unauthorized transactions, funds were transferred to Santos’s campaign, to the campaigns of other candidates for elected office, and to his own bank account. To conceal the true source of these funds and to circumvent campaign contribution limits, Santos falsely represented that some of the campaign contributions were made by other persons, such as his relatives or associates, rather than the true cardholders, in filings with the FEC. Santos did not have authorization to use their names in this way.
Fraudulent Political Contribution Solicitation Scheme
Beginning in September 2022, during his successful campaign for Congress, Santos operated a limited liability company (Company #1) through which he defrauded prospective political supporters. Santos enlisted a Queens-based political consultant (Person #1) to communicate with prospective donors on Santos’s behalf. Santos directed Person #1 to falsely tell donors that, among other things, their money would be used to help elect Santos to the House, including by purchasing television advertisements. In reliance on these false statements, two donors (Contributor #1 and Contributor #2) each transferred $25,000 to Company #1’s bank account, which Santos controlled.
Shortly after the funds were received into Company #1’s bank account, the money was transferred into Santos’s personal bank accounts—in one instance laundered through two of Santos’s personal accounts. Santos then used much of that money for personal expenses. Among other things, Santos used the funds to make personal purchases, including of designer clothing, to withdraw cash, to discharge personal debts, and to transfer money to his associates.
Unemployment Insurance Fraud Scheme
Beginning in approximately February 2020, Santos was employed as a Regional Director of a Florida-based investment firm (Investment Firm #1). By late March 2020, in response to the outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States, new legislation was signed into law that provided additional federal funding to assist out-of-work Americans during the pandemic.
In mid-June 2020, although he was employed and not eligible for unemployment benefits, Santos applied for government assistance through the New York State Department of Labor (NYS DOL), claiming falsely to have been unemployed since March 2020. From that point until April 2021—during which time Santos was working and receiving a salary on a near-continuous basis, and throughout his first unsuccessful run for Congress—he falsely affirmed each week that he was eligible for unemployment benefits when he was not. As a result, Santos fraudulently received more than $24,000 in unemployment insurance benefits.
False Statements to the House of Representatives
Santos, like all candidates for the House, had a legal duty to file with the Clerk of the House of Representatives a Financial Disclosure Statement (House Disclosures) before each election. In his House Disclosures, Santos was personally required to give a full and complete accounting of his assets, income, and liabilities, among other things. He certified that his House Disclosures were true, complete, and correct.
In September 2022, in connection with his second campaign for election to the House, Santos filed a House Disclosure in which he vastly overstated his income and assets. In this House Disclosure, he falsely certified that during the reporting period:
- He had earned $750,000 in salary from the Devolder Organization LLC, a Florida based entity of which Santos was the sole beneficial owner;
- He had received between $1,000,001 and $5,000,000 in dividends from the Devolder Organization LLC;
- He had a checking account with deposits of between $100,001 and $250,000; and
- He had a savings account with deposits of between $1,000,001 and $5,000,000.
These assertions were false: Santos had not received from the Devolder Organization LLC the reported amounts of salary or dividends and did not maintain checking or savings accounts with deposits in the reported amounts. Further, Santos failed to disclose that, in 2021, he received approximately $28,000 in income from Investment Firm #1 and more than $20,000 in unemployment insurance benefits from the NYS DOL.
When sentenced, Santos faces a minimum sentence of two years’ imprisonment and a maximum sentence of 22 years’ imprisonment. As part of the plea Santos will pay restitution of $373,749.97 and forfeiture of $205,002.97.
