George Santos, the disgraced former congressman whose political career unraveled after he admitted to fabricating key elements of his background, pleaded guilty Monday to a pair of felony fraud charges.
The agreement with federal prosecutors comes as Santos, who was expelled from Congress on Dec. 1, was facing a 23-count superseding indictment in the Eastern District of New York, including charges of wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and making materially false statements to the Federal Election Commission. He was initially indicted on 13 counts in May of last year.
“I deeply regret my conduct, I fully accept responsibility for my actions, and I understand my actions have betrayed the trust of my supporters,” Santos said in court Monday.
Prosecutors accused Santos, a New York Republican, of “stealing people’s identities and making charges on his own donors’ credit cards without their authorization, lying to the FEC and, by extension, the public about the financial state of his campaign.”
As part of the deal with prosecutors, Santos pleaded guilty to the wire fraud and identity theft charges. The charges carry a minimum two year prison sentence, and a maximum of 22 years. He’ll be sentenced on Feb. 7. As part of the agreement, he must pay $373,749.97 in restitution and forfeiture of $205,002.97.
After his initial arraignment on the charges in May of last year, Santos claimed he was being politically persecuted. “I will fight the witch hunt,” he said then.
Santos was elected in 2022, when he flipped a congressional seat in Long Island from Democratic to Republican, helping cement a narrow GOP majority in the House. A few weeks before the start of his term, The New York Times reported that Santos had lied about or embellished certain parts of his resume and personal history. More fabrications soon came to light, including a claim that he was Jewish. He later said he was “Jew-ish.”
Following the release of a scathing House Ethics report that concluded there was “substantial evidence” Santos “violated federal criminal laws” — including using campaign cash for personal expenses — over two-thirds of Santos’ House colleagues voted in December to expel him from Congress, formally removing him from his congressional seat.
Alana Satlin contributed.
