CENTRAL ISLIP, NY – A 23-count superseding indictment was filed as we speak within the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, charging George Anthony Devolder Santos, higher generally known as “George Santos,” the United States Representative for the Third District of New York, with one depend of conspiracy to commit offenses in opposition to the United States, two counts of wire fraud, two counts of creating materially false statements to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), two counts of falsifying data submitted to hinder the FEC, two counts of aggravated id theft, and one depend of access machine fraud, along with the seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one depend of theft of public funds, and two counts of creating materially false statements to the United States House of Representatives that had been charged within the unique indictment. Santos is due again in federal court docket in Central Islip on October 27, 2023.
Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Nicole M. Argentieri, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, and James Smith, Assistant Director-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI), and Anne T. Donnelly, Nassau County District Attorney, introduced the superseding indictment.
“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. Santos falsely inflated the campaign’s reported receipts with non-existent loans and contributions that were either fabricated or stolen” said United States Attorney Peace. “This Office will relentlessly pursue criminal charges against anyone who uses the electoral process as an opportunity to defraud the public and our government institutions.”
“Santos allegedly led multiple additional fraudulent criminal schemes, lying to the American public in the process. The FBI is committed to upholding the laws of our electoral process. Anyone who attempts to violate the law as part of a political campaign will face punishment in the criminal justice system,” said FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Smith.
“The defendant – a Congressman – allegedly stole the identities of family members and used the credit card information of political contributors to fraudulently inflate his campaign coffers,” said District Attorney Donnelly. “We thank our partners in the US Attorney’s Office and the FBI as we work together to root out public corruption on Long Island.”
As alleged within the superseding indictment, Santos, who was elected to Congress final November and sworn in because the U.S. Representative for New York’s Third Congressional District on January 7, 2023, engaged in two fraudulent schemes, along with the a number of fraudulent schemes alleged within the unique indictment.
The Party Program Scheme
During the 2022 election cycle, Santos was a candidate for the United States House of Representatives in New York’s Third Congressional District. Nancy Marks, who pleaded responsible on October 5, 2023 to associated conduct, was the treasurer for his principal congressional marketing campaign committee, Devolder-Santos for Congress. During this election cycle, Santos and Marks conspired with each other to plan and execute a fraudulent scheme to acquire money for the marketing campaign by submitting materially false studies to the FEC on behalf of the marketing campaign, through which they inflated the marketing campaign’s fundraising numbers for the aim of deceptive the FEC, a nationwide get together committee, and the general public.
Specifically, the aim of the scheme was to make sure that Santos and his marketing campaign certified for a program administered by the nationwide get together committee, pursuant to which the nationwide get together committee would supply monetary and logistical help to Santos’s marketing campaign. To qualify for this system, Santos needed to exhibit, amongst different issues, that his congressional marketing campaign had raised at the very least $250,000 from third-party contributors in a single quarter.
To create the general public look that his marketing campaign had met that monetary benchmark and was in any other case financially viable, Santos and Marks agreed to falsely report back to the FEC that at the very least 10 relations of Santos and Marks had made vital monetary contributions to the marketing campaign, when Santos and Marks each knew that these people had neither made the reported contributions nor given authorization for his or her private info to be included in such false public studies. In addition, understanding that the nationwide get together committee relied on FEC fundraising knowledge to judge candidates’ qualification for this system, Santos and Marks agreed to falsely report back to the FEC that Santos had loaned the marketing campaign vital sums of money, when, in actual fact, Santos had not made the reported loans and, on the time the loans had been reported, didn’t have the funds essential to make such loans. These false reported loans included a $500,000 mortgage, when Santos had lower than $8,000 in his private and business financial institution accounts.
Through the execution of this scheme, Santos and Marks ensured that Santos met the mandatory monetary benchmarks to qualify for this system administered by the nationwide get together committee. As a results of qualifying for this system, the congressional marketing campaign obtained monetary help.
The Credit Card Fraud Scheme
In addition, between roughly December 2021 and August 2022, Santos devised and executed a fraudulent scheme to steal the private id and monetary info of contributors to his marketing campaign. He then charged contributors’ bank cards repeatedly, with out their authorization. Because of those unauthorized transactions, funds had been transferred to Santos’s marketing campaign, to the campaigns of different candidates for elected workplace, and to his personal checking account. To conceal the true supply of those funds and to avoid marketing campaign contribution limits, Santos falsely represented that a few of the marketing campaign contributions had been made by different individuals, akin to his kinfolk or associates, relatively than the true cardholders. Santos didn’t have authorization to make use of their names on this means.
For instance, in December 2021, one contributor (the “Contributor”) texted Santos and others to make a contribution to his marketing campaign, offering billing info for 2 bank cards. In the times after he obtained the billing info, Santos used the bank card info to make quite a few contributions to his marketing campaign and affiliated political committees in quantities exceeding relevant contribution limits, with out the Contributor’s data or authorization. To masks the true supply of those contributions and thereby circumvent the relevant marketing campaign contribution limits, Santos falsely recognized the contributor for one of many costs as one among his kinfolk. In the next months, Santos repeatedly charged the Contributor’s bank card with out the Contributor’s data or authorization, trying to make at the very least $44,800 in costs and repeatedly concealing the true supply of funds by falsely itemizing the supply of funds as Santos himself, his kinfolk and different contributors. On one event, Santos charged $12,000 to the Contributor’s bank card, finally transferring the overwhelming majority of that money into his private checking account.
The costs within the superseding indictment are allegations, and the defendants are presumed harmless except and till confirmed responsible past an affordable doubt in a court docket of regulation.
The authorities’s case is being dealt with by the Office’s Public Integrity Section, the Long Island Criminal Division, and the Justice Department Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section. Assistant United States Attorneys Ryan Harris, Anthony Bagnuola, and Laura Zuckerwise, together with Trial Attorneys Jacob Steiner and John Taddei, are in command of the prosecution with help from Paralegal Specialist Rachel Friedman. Former Trial Attorney Jolee Porter of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section additionally supplied substantial contributions to the prosecution.
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Age: 35
Washington
E.D.N.Y. Docket No. 23-CR-197 (JS)
