- Prosecutors say Rep. George Santos tricked supporters into sending him tens of thousands of dollars.
- After he got the money, prosecutors say he spent thousands on designer clothes and credit payments.
Rep. George Santos duped supporters into giving him money and spent thousands of it on designer clothes and credit-card payments, federal prosecutors allege.
The embattled New York congressman surrendered Wednesday to law enforcement at a federal court on Long Island, New York. He was criminally charged with several counts, including wire fraud, money laundering, and theft of public funds.
Prosecutors allege in the indictment that before Santos was elected to Congress, he "executed a scheme to defraud supporters of his candidacy for the House and to obtain money from them by fraudulently inducing them to contribute funds" to an LLC he ran under the false pretense that the cash would be used to support his candidacy.
Instead, Santos spent "thousands of dollars of the solicited funds on personal expenses, including luxury designer clothing and credit card payments," prosecutors say in the indictment.
A history of lies
Shortly after Santos took office this year, news reports surfaced saying that he had lied about several key aspects of his background while on the campaign trail.
Santos, a Catholic, repeatedly claimed to be Jewish while he was campaigning. He later walked that back, claiming he said he was "Jew-ish." He also lied about the circumstances of his mother's death while campaigning, said he went to two universities that denied his attendance, and lied about his employment history.
He has since apologized for the plethora of lies, which he called simply an "embellishment."
"If I disappointed anyone by my résumé embellishment, I'm sorry," Santos said on 77 WABC radio.
Santos 2024
In April, before he was charged in New York, Santos announced his plan to run for a second term in office.
"I am proudly announcing my bid for re-election for #NY03. This is about TAKING BACK our country and restoring greatness back to New York," Santos tweeted.
Running again may be tricky. Santos' recent financial filings showed his campaign in dire straits: The campaign's filings in the first quarter of 2023 disclosed it had refunded more contributions than it brought in.