(AFP) – Disgraced former Republican lawmaker George Santos, who was expelled from the US Congress for using stolen donor cash to bankroll a lavish lifestyle, pleaded guilty on Monday to wire fraud and identity theft. Judge Joanna Seybert ordered Santos to pay more than $370,000 in restitution during a court hearing in Central Islip and set sentencing for February 7. Santos, 36, faces at least two years in prison and a maximum of 22 years.
“After years of telling lies, George Santos stood in the courthouse right behind me and finally, under oath, told the truth,” Breon Peace, US attorney for the Eastern District of New York, told reporters. “And that truth is that he is a criminal,” Peace said. “He lied, he stole and he conned people.”
An emotional Santos, speaking to reporters after entering his guilty plea, apologized to his former constituents and said he had allowed “ambition to cloud my judgment,” leading him to make “decisions that were unethical.” “This plea is not just an admission of guilt but an acknowledgement that I need to be held accountable like any other American that breaks the law,” he said through tears.
The downfall of the congressman from Long Island came after it was revealed he had fabricated almost his entire backstory including his education, religion and work history. Santos was elected to the US House of Representatives in 2022 and indicted the following year for stealing from campaign donors and engaging in credit card fraud, money laundering and identity theft.
Santos used donor money for Botox treatments and the OnlyFans porn website, as well as luxury Italian goods and vacations to the Hamptons and Las Vegas, according to an investigation by a congressional ethics committee. He had been scheduled to go on trial on September 9 on some two dozen charges but opted instead to enter a guilty plea to wire fraud and identity theft.
Santos’s bizarre biographical fabrications included claiming to have worked for Goldman Sachs, being Jewish and having been a college volleyball star. He was ultimately doomed by the congressional probe that found overwhelming evidence of misconduct and accused him of seeking to “fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy.”
Santos was expelled from the House last year, becoming only the third person to be ejected as a US lawmaker since the Civil War, a rebuke previously reserved for traitors and convicted criminals. In February, voters in his suburban New York district picked Democrat Tom Suozzi to replace him.
© 2024 AFP
