Rep. George Santos A Gay Republican Charged With 13 Counts Of Fraud, Financial Crimes. Money Laundering, Misleading Donors And Unemployment Insurance Fraud.

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Rep. George Santos charged with 13 counts of fraud, financial crimes
Freshman lawmaker accused of money laundering, misleading donors, falsely claiming unemployment benefits
By Shayna Jacobs, Devlin Barrett, Isaac Stanley-Becker and Perry Stein
Updated May 10, 2023 at 2:32 p.m. EDT|Published May 10, 2023 at 9:24 a.m. EDT

George Santos: What to know about his indictment
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The Post's Devlin Barrett breaks down the 13 crimes Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) was charged with on May 10 and explains what could come next. (Video: HyoJung Kim/The Washington Post, Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
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CENTRAL ISLIP, New York — Rep. 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 wrongly claiming unemployment benefits.

Santos, 34, surrendered to federal authorities in the morning and pleaded not guilty Wednesday afternoon in a federal courthouse in this hamlet on Long Island. The freshman congressman, who announced his reelection bid last month, was arraigned before a magistrate judge and ordered released on $500,000 bond.

His lawyer, Joe Murray, told reporters after the proceeding 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.”


Santos was told to surrender his passport and return to court June 30. He 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 count, 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.

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 indictment, handed up less than than five months after authorities in the Eastern District of New York began their investigation, includes new accusations about a scheme to unlawfully obtain unemployment benefits.

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 U.S. 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,” U.S. 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.”

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The indictment divided Republicans on Capitol Hill, with House GOP leadership signaling they would take no immediate action against the freshman lawmaker while several New York Republicans insisted it was time for him to leave Congress.


House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) 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. Rep. Marcus J. Molinaro (R-N.Y.), 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,” Molinaro said in a text message to The Washington 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.”

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, who flipped a seat previously held by a Democrat, apologized for what he called “résumé embellishment” but rebuffed calls to give up his seat. He began to revel in the attention, dangling further revelations about disputed details of his background.


Those fibs pale in comparison to the misconduct alleged by federal prosecutors in New York.

According to the indictment, Santos used tens of thousands of dollars ostensibly raised for his 2022 congressional race to pay for designer clothes, pay off debts, and give money to associates. He is accused of soliciting funds, personally and through his campaign treasurer, to a company that he falsely represented both as a social welfare organization and a super PAC supporting his bid for federal office. In fact, prosecutors claim, funds from the company ultimately went to bank accounts controlled by Santos.

Read the indictment of Rep. George Santos

The company is not named in the indictment, but details disclosed by prosecutors match those of Redstone Strategies LLC, formed in Florida in November 2021. A firm owned by Santos and named for his mother’s family, Devolder Organization LLC, was listed as one of Redstone’s managers.


According to prosecutors, Santos directed a political consultant on Long Island to solicit funds for Redstone Strategies, falsely saying that the company was designed to “help this race” and that there were “no limits” on contributions. The consultant proceeded to solicit donations, according to text messages and emails quoted in the indictment, including by saying that the money would support television ads and other efforts aimed “exclusively” at the candidate’s bid for office.

Santos personally sought cash for the company as well, including by telling one donor just days before the November election that more money was needed for TV ads, the indictment says. That very day, prosecutors allege, the donor wired $25,000 to the company. The donor was New York investor Andrew Intrater, according to a person close to Intrater who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity. The person said Intrater later provided evidence about his interactions with Santos to the Justice Department.

The funds sent to Redstone Strategies were transferred to bank accounts controlled by Santos and used for personal expenses and to pay associates — not spent on the campaign, prosecutors allege.


Santos is also charged with lying on congressional financial disclosure forms about his income and other assets dating back to his first bid for Congress in 2020. His purportedly false statements include details of the $750,000 salary he reported from the Devolder Organization; the $1 million and $5 million in dividends he identified from that firm; and the assets he reported from checking and savings accounts. Prosecutors also claim he failed to disclose the unemployment benefits he was obtaining in New York as well as his earnings from the Florida investment firm, Harbor City Capital, which was sued by the SEC in 2021. Santos has said he wasn’t aware of any wrongdoing at Harbor City.


Breaking down George Santos’s misleading claims
2:53
Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) has falsified his personal history, padded his résumé and made other outlandish claims that have put him in hot water. (Video: Blair Guild/The Washington Post)
Wide-ranging complaints filed by watchdog groups with the Federal Election Commission earlier this year accused Santos of misrepresenting campaign spending and using campaign resources to cover personal expenses, among other allegations. In January, the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section asked the FEC to hold off on any enforcement action against Santos, suggesting that prosecutors were examining overlapping issues. In March, a House ethics panel said it would investigate Santos and established a bipartisan subcommittee to examine claims about him, including about his past business practices, campaign finance expenditures and an allegation of sexual misconduct.

At the same time, Santos was voting and introducing legislation in Congress. He is one of nearly three dozen Republicans sponsoring legislation to create incentives for states to investigate people who wrongfully obtained coronavirus unemployment insurance benefits — the same type of fraud that Santos himself is now alleged to have committed.


“He voluntarily had stepped down from his committees,” Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) told reporters Wednesday. “We are committed to making sure that we root out any fraud when it comes to unemployment, pandemic assistance, and we’re working to have support from our conference. And it’s good policy. And we urge the Democrats to vote in support.”

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) said in a statement: “The charges against Rep. Santos are extremely serious and deeply disturbing and as I’ve previously said, he simply doesn’t have the trust of his constituents or colleagues. The sooner he leaves, the sooner his district can be represented by someone who isn’t a liar and fraud.”

The congressman’s fabrications during his campaign touched nearly every aspect of his life, from his family background to his academic pedigree and work experience. Santos said his mother was inside one of the World Trade Center towers when they were attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, but immigration records indicate that his mother wasn’t in the United States on that day. He claimed to have worked for high-powered Wall Street firms that denied employing him. He even falsely claimed to have been a star on his college volleyball team.


Republican leaders in his district and members of New York’s congressional delegation called on him to resign, but Santos refused. After initially dodging cameras and refusing interviews in the halls of Congress, the lawmaker came to embrace his notoriety. He threw in with the far-right faction of his party and endorsed former president Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign.

Last month, he announced that he would seek reelection. As recently as last week, he told associates that he wasn’t worried about the investigations or expecting to be charged, according to people in touch with him.

At a January event hosted at the Conrad hotel by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for donors and new members of Congress, Santos was asked how he was faring, according to two people present.

“This is an event for the new speaker, but I’m the most famous person in the room,” he replied.

This is a developing story. It will be updated.

Barrett, Stanley-Becker and Stein reported from Washington. John Wagner and Azi Paybarah in Washington contributed to this report.

More on George Santos
Rep. 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 including fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds, and false statements. Here’s a look at the 13 counts against him.

What has Santos lied about? Santos fabricated much of his biography. The list of untruths is long, here are few:

Education: Santos wrote on a résumé that he graduated from Baruch College in 2010 with a bachelor’s degree in economics and finance. He never attended Baruch. He also lied about his athletic ability, saying he was a star on the Baruch volleyball team.
Work: Santos said he worked for high-powered Wall Street firms Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. Both companies told the New York Times in December that they had no record of Santos ever working there.
9/11: Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) has said his mother was inside one of the World Trade Center towers when they were attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, but immigration records indicate that Santos’s mother wasn’t in the United States on that day.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/10/george-santos-charges/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F39f8a22%2F645bbaefa61bab12f75e3d4c%2F63895a5b69508848e2f7a6f3%2F8%2F72%2F645bbaefa61bab12f75e3d4c for the rest of it.