George Santos pleads guilty, avoiding a looming criminal trial
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- Former US Congressman George Santos has pleaded guilty to two counts in his criminal case.
- Prosecutors accused him of fraud, money laundering, and a litany of other crimes.
- Santos made history by being expelled from Congress late last year.
Serial liar and former US congressman George Santos pleaded guilty to criminal charges in court Monday, avoiding a criminal trial.
Federal prosecutors charged Santos with 23 counts of fraud, money laundering, identity theft, and conspiracy charges.
They alleged he participated in a series of schemes that involved stealing credit card information from his political donors, lying to Congress, stealing unemployment and pandemic relief funds, falsifying campaign records, and other crimes.
Santos ultimately pleaded guilty on Monday to two counts — one count of wire fraud and one count of identity theft — as part of a plea agreement.
"You trusted me to represent you with honor and to uphold the values that are central to our democracy," Santos told reporters outside court after the hearing. "And in that regard, I failed you."
US District Judge Joann Seybert set Santos' sentencing for February 7.
The plea agreement requires Santos to pay restitution of at least $373,749. Santos could face up to eight years in prison, Seybert said Monday. Breon Peace, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, told reporters at a press conference Monday that he expected Santos to spend at least two years in prison, and that he hoped the case would help "restore faith" in democratic institutions.
"A short time ago, after years of telling lies, former Congressman George Santos stood in the courthouse behind me and finally, under oath, told the truth," Peace said. "And the truth is that he's a criminal."
Monday's court appearance was previously scheduled as a pretrial conference to resolve legal issues ahead of a September 9 trial date.
But since Friday, it was widely expected to turn into a plea hearing after Talking Points memo reported that Santos's fraud victims were informed he would plead guilty.
Court filings previously indicated Santos was in talks for a plea deal as early as December. In July, Seybert formally rejected all of his lawyer's arguments to dismiss the case, drastically narrowing his already narrow chances of an acquittal.
In text messages to Business Insider on Friday, Santos was his usual evasive self.
"I've told you before I don't comment on my case," he told BI, while commenting on his case.
"This is news to me," he scoffed in one text. "It's a status conference!" he said in another.
Santos lied about his past, creating an avalanche of scandals
Santos became a notorious national figure shortly after he was elected to Congress in 2022 as a Republican representing a New York district on Long Island and in part of Queens.
The New York Times and local reporters found that Santos misrepresented key parts of his biography. He never worked for Goldman Sachs or Citigroup, as he claimed. He didn't have a family real estate fortune or a successful consulting company. And he didn't even attend Baruch College, much less play on its volleyball team.
The stories piled up. Santos lied about his mother's death in the 9/11 terror attacks, his grandmother being in the Holocaust, employees dying in the Pulse nightclub shooting, his niece being kidnapped, being Jewish, performing drag in Brazil, his work in an animal charity, going to New York University, and producing the Broadway flop "Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark."
He even lied about acting in episodes of the Disney Channel shows "Hannah Montana" and "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody."
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
In May 2023, federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York brought a 13-count indictment against him. They brought 10 more charges in October.
In November, a Congressional ethics report found that Santos spent campaign funds on OnlyFans, Botox, Sephora, and luxury goods from Hermes and Ferragamo. A month later, Santos made history as the sixth person in American history to be expelled from the US House of Representatives in a 311-114 vote. He is the first to be expelled without already having a criminal conviction or being a member of the Confederacy that waged the Civil War against the United States.
Santos formally canceled his candidacy for the 2024 Congressional election in April.
Two associates of Santos — Nancy Marks and Sam Miele — have previously pleaded guilty to fraud charges against them and would have likely testified in Santos' trial.
Democrat Tom Suozzi won a special election to take back the congressional seat in February. He previously represented the district but left it in 2022 for a failed bid in New York's gubernatorial race.
Since being expelled from Congress, Santos has made money from Cameo and OnlyFans.
Hours before his plea Monday, Santos suffered another legal loss: A judge tossed his copyright lawsuit against Jimmy Kimmel, who used his Cameo videos to mock him on TV.
This story has been updated.