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Feds lower the boom on George Santos, unveil new 10-count indictment

October 11, 2023 | | Print Article

Federal prosecutors unveiled 10 new criminal counts against Rep. George Santos on Tuesday, bringing his total to a whopping 23.

Santos already pleaded “not guilty” in May to 13 original counts alleging that he’d “duped donors, embezzled money from his campaign, lied in financial disclosures submitted to Congress about being a millionaire and received unemployment funds when he wasn’t eligible,” as reported at the time by the Associated Press.

The latest charges accuse Santos of stealing his donors’ identities and then using their credit cards to “ring up tens of thousands of dollars in unauthorized charges,” according to the AP’s latest write-up.

“As alleged, Santos is charged with 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,” US Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement.

“Santos falsely inflated the campaign’s reported receipts with non-existent loans and contributions that were either fabricated or stolen,” he added.

He reportedly charged over $44,000 to his donors’ credit cards. In one instance, he charged $12,000 to the donor’s CC and then transferred the “vast majority” of the money into his personal bank account.

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As noted by Peace, Santos also lied to the FEC by telling them that he’d loaned his campaign $500,000 when in reality he hadn’t given anything, and the value of his personal bank account was lower than $8,000.

“The fake loan was an attempt to convince Republican Party officials that he was a serious candidate,” the AP notes.

Questioned on Tuesday about the new charges, Santos claimed he knew nothing about them — he’d just come out of a GOP conference — and chose to remain mum.

“I was in conference like everyone else, without my phone, so I have nothing to say,” he said.

He’s previously claimed he’s an innocent victim of a “witch hunt.”

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All this comes a week after Santos’ former campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks, pleaded guilty last week “to her role in fraudulently reporting a fictional $500,000 loan that Mr. Santos claimed to have made to his campaign,” as reported by The New York Times.

“Nancy Marks, plead guilty to one felony count of conspiracy to defraud the United States. She also admitted to falsifying and inflating financial numbers and making numerous false statements in conjunction with Mr. Santos, a Republican from New York. Under the terms of her deal, she faces a recommended sentence of between three and four years in prison,” according to the Times.

“Appearing before the same judge who is presiding over Mr. Santos’s case, Ms. Marks, 58, looked stoic and composed in the courtroom in Central Islip, N.Y. She admitted to making reports of false donations and said that the $500,000 loan Mr. Santos claimed to have made was fraudulent,” the Times notes.

Her plea was perhaps the final nail in the coffin for Santos, who had previously tried to blame her for all the discrepancies, claiming a “former fiduciary went rogue.”

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Despite all this, Santos still refuses to resign, a decision that’s prompted an outpouring of massive backlash and mockery.

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Interestingly, while Santos’ haters have been hounding and harassing him on X, he’s been busy showing support for Israel amid the terror attack from Hamas.

Meanwhile, he’s now facing renewed calls from his New York colleagues — including the Republican ones — to resign.

“He’s a terrible human being. He does not deserve to be in the House of Representatives. He deserves to be in a federal prison. And I think the issue of expulsion is going to be something that a lot of my colleagues are going to talk about,” Rep. Nick LaLota, a Republican, told Punchbowl News.

Vivek Saxena
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