George Santos due in court, expected to plead guilty in fraud case, AP source says
Former US Congressman George Santos must appear in court on Monday afternoon, where a person familiar with the case has said The New York Republican is expected to plead guilty to multiple charges in his federal fraud case.
The person could not publicly discuss details of the plea and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Santos and his attorneys did not respond to requests for comment.
The case has been is scheduled for early next month. The Monday afternoon hearing on Long Island was not rescheduled until Friday at the request of both prosecutors and Santos’ attorneys. A letter making the request did not specify what it would be about.
Santos has previously pleaded not guilty to a series of alleged financial crimes, including lying to Congress about his assets, collecting unemployment benefits while working and using campaign contributions to pay for personal expenses.
The 36-year-old was once seen as a rising political star after winning the suburban area encompassing Long Island’s affluent North Shore and part of the New York City borough of Queens in 2022.
But his life story began to unravel before he was even sworn in. At the time, reports emerged that he had lied about a career at top Wall Street firms and a college degree, among other questions about his biography.
New questions then came out about his campaign funds.
He was first indicted on federal charges in May 2023, but refused to step down. Santos was expelled from Congress after an ethics investigation found “overwhelming evidence” that he had broken the law and exploited his public position for personal gain.
Santos has previously maintained his innocence, although he said in an interview in December that a settlement with prosecutors was “not out of the question.”
When asked if he was afraid of going to prison, he told CBS 2 at the time, “I think everybody should be afraid of going to prison, it’s not a nice place to be and uh, I definitely want to work very hard to avoid that as much as I can.”
As the trial date approached in recent weeks, had searched to have a partially anonymous jury, with his attorneys arguing in court documents that “the mere risk of public ridicule could impair the ability of individual jurors to judge Santos’ case solely on the facts and law as presented in court.”
He also wanted potential jurors to fill out a written questionnaire to gauge their opinions of him. His lawyers argued that the survey was necessary because “Santos has already been found guilty in the court of public opinion.”
Judge Joanna Seybert agreed to release the identities of the jurors but declined to complete the questionnaire.
Meanwhile, prosecutors sought to admit into evidence some of the financial lies Santos told during his campaign, including that he had worked at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs and that he had run a family business with about $80 million in assets,
Two of Santos’ campaign workers have already pleaded guilty to crimes related to the former congressman’s campaign.
His former treasurer, Nancy Marks, pleaded guilty in October on a fraud charge involving Santos in an alleged scheme to embellish his campaign finance reports with a phony loan and donors. A lawyer for Marks said at the time that his client would be willing to testify against Santos if asked.
Sam Miele, a former fundraiser for Santos, pleaded guilty a month later on a federal charge of wire fraud, in which he admitted posing as a high-ranking congressional staffer while raising money for Santos’ campaign.
___
Associated Press Editor Michael R. Sisak contributed to this report.