George Santos’ Lies Finally Catch Up With Him in Stunning Indictment

The long trail of lies has finally caught up with Rep. George Santos, who was indicted on Wednesday for enriching himself by defrauding political donors, cheating the federal government to get COVID relief funds, and faking House disclosure forms.

The Justice Department unsealed a 13-count indictment Tuesday morning that detailed the variety of ways Santos used his brief political rise to dupe taxpayers and donors—an eagerly awaited law enforcement action that followed months of investigative news reports about his wide ranging fraudster lifestyle.

Santos was placed into custody Wednesday morning, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. He is expected to be arraigned later today.

Investigators have been probing Santos’ campaign and financial affairs for months. Since being elected last year, the congressman has been accused of lying about his life story, work history, and education, and questions have been raised surrounding unusual payments and loans surrounding his campaign.

Despite the mounting scrutiny, Santos was apparently surprised when federal prosecutors filed sealed charges in the Eastern District of New York on Tuesday. “This is news to me,” he told the Associated Press when approached for comment. “You’re the first to call me about this.”

Aside from the allegations which led to his criminal charges, Santos had previously been accused of fabricating large swathes of his biography— including not disclosing a marriage and lying that his mother was killed on 9/11—as well as stealing money intended to pay for a veteran’s dog’s surgery, using a stolen checkbook to buy clothes in Brazil, running a credit card fraud scheme, and possibly making up an “assassination attempt.”

Prosecutors allege that starting in Sept. 2022, when Santos began his congressional campaign, he operated a limited liability company that he used to defraud political supporters. Santos also allegedly enlisted the help of a political consultant, named “Person 1” in the indictment, to tell donors that that money would be used to help his campaign, including TV ads.

The indictment also details steps Santos and “Person 1” took to enlist potential donors, including sending multiple emails and texts to entice them to help the campaign. In one Oct. 4, 2022 email, “Person 1” sent an email to one donor insisting they were trying to “raise another $700,000 dollars to reach our goal of $1.5 million to invest in [DEVOLDER SANTOS’s] race.”

The communication tactics ultimately led to at least two unnamed donors to each transfer $25,000 to a bank account that Santos allegedly controlled. Shortly after the funds were received into the company bank account, the indictment states, the money was transferred into Santos’ personal account.

The indictment states that thousands of dollars meant for the campaign were used on personal experiences, including “luxury designer clothing and credit card payments.” Santos also allegedly used the money to make cash withdrawals, payments on personal debts, and send at least one bank transfer to a personal associate.

Prosecutors also accused Santos of illegally tapping taxpayer money meant to help Americans who suddenly became jobless due to the sharp economic downturn during the COVID pandemic’s nationwide business closures. The indictment states Santos applied to receive unemployment insurance benefits from New York State and federal funds that came from the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security Act. It accused him of lying about being unemployed for more than a year, from March 2020 until April 2021, noting how he certified to the government every week that he was still without a job—even though he was actively making $120,000 a year as a regional director at an investment firm headquartered in Melbourne, Florida.

But according to investigators, Santos went even further when he carried these lies over to mandated federal disclosure forms required of every member of Congress. The indictment alleges that Santos hid how much money he was actually making on his House of Representatives financial disclosure paperwork, claiming that he made $55,000 from a second company—a higher number that disguised how he was actually getting paid by the Florida investment firm.

Santos only made it worse for himself last year, when he turned in House disclosure forms that made it seem like he had earned a $750,000 salary from his mysterious “Devolder Organization,” got anywhere between $1 million and $5 million in company dividends, owned a checking account with $100,001 to $250,000, and had anywhere from $1 million to $5 million sitting in his savings account. In reality, investigators charged, all of those numbers were simply made up.