Former Rep. George Santos pleaded guilty to wire fraud and identity theft charges in a federal courtroom on Long Island Monday afternoon, concluding a nearly two-year saga that engulfed the United States Congress and stunned the public with increasingly lurid revelations.
Prosecutors accused the former congressmember of a wide range of federal crimes as part of a scheme to mislead voters and defraud donors. With his plea, Santos admits guilt to only some of the charges. He was also accused of money laundering, theft of public funds and making false statements to Congress.
The plea deal submitted in Central Islip on Monday comes just three weeks before jury selection was set to begin in Santos’ 23-count criminal trial. Santos is instead expected to face sentencing on Feb. 7.
Santos, who became famous for falsifying huge swaths of his personal biography, remained defiant in the face of mounting charges — even when his colleagues ousted him from Congress in December. He was the first representative expelled in more than 20 years and only the sixth in history.
Santos was first indicted last May on 13 charges including fraud and money laundering. Prosecutors alleged that he had told donors their contributions would be used to pay for campaign commercials, but instead transferred their funds into his personal bank account to purchase luxury goods and pay off his credit cards.
They also accused Santos of defrauding the federal government by applying for pandemic-era unemployment benefits while earning a $120,000 salary at an investment firm. Santos initially pleaded not guilty and insisted he did nothing wrong.
In October, prosecutors filed a superseding indictment with 10 more criminal charges, bringing the total to 23. Among them, prosecutors alleged that Santos falsified documents to the Federal Election Commission, including a claim that he had loaned his own campaign $500,000 to make it appear more successful. Santos again pleaded not guilty.
“I’m entitled to due process and not a predetermined outcome as some are seeking. God bless!” Santos said at the time on social media.
Until Monday, only people who worked for Santos had been held responsible for the campaign’s fraudulent practices. Santos’ campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks, pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge last October. Samuel Miele, a campaign aide, pleaded guilty to a federal fraud charge last November.
Santos’ tenure has been marked by controversy since before he was sworn into office. Shortly after he was elected in November 2022, reports emerged that he misrepresented significant aspects of his background. His false claims included that he worked for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs on Wall Street, attended Baruch College (and was a volleyball star there), was Jewish, that his mother died in the September 11th terror attacks and that he had a brain tumor.
“Since the day I was elected, it’s been a witch hunt, but if I’m guilty of anything, it’s for loving to much slash fraud,” an impersonator quipped on Saturday Night Live.
Though local party leaders urged the freshman member to step down before he had even taken office, Santos remained for months, cementing House Republicans’ narrow majority. Two New York House Democrats — Reps. Dan Goldman and Ritchie Torres — filed a formal ethics complaint against Santos, pointing to financial disclosure documents to Congress that misrepresented his income and personal finances. In March of last year, a bipartisan House Ethics subcommittee launched an investigation into Santos seeking any evidence of conduct that was illegal or in violation of House rules.
After Santos’ former staffers pleaded guilty, the House ethics committee released a scathing report of its investigation, finding that there was, “substantial evidence of additional uncharged unlawful and unethical conduct.” The report included additional evidence that Santos misused campaign funds for personal spending — including trips to the Hamptons and Atlantic City, Botox treatments, a more than $4,000 purchase at Hermes, and OnlyFans, a website associated with pornographic content.
Santos called the report “biased” and said on social media that he would “remain steadfast in fighting for my rights and for defending my name in the face of adversity.”
Despite the mounting charges and scathing ethics findings, it took Congressional lawmakers three attempts to expel Santos. But in December, by a vote of 311-114, a bipartisan group of House members tossed Santos from office.
His removal set in motion a high profile special election to fill the seat representing the 3rd congressional district in eastern Queens and northern Nassau County, a swing district that went back to Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi, who was also Santos’ predecessor.
But for all the chaos Santos caused in the headlines and on Capitol Hill, his unraveling ultimately had little impact on local Republicans’ performance in subsequent elections, said Larry Levy, executive dean of Hofstra University’s National Center for Suburban Studies.
If anything, Levy said the Santos drama may have resulted in an unintended positive impact for both Democrats and Republicans when it comes to future candidates.
“Both parties now are more careful about who they put in front of the public, which is fine in my book,” said Levy.
This is a developing story and will be updated.