Ex-NYC Rep. George Santos sentenced to 7 years, 3 months in prison for scams, lies
NEW YORK — Republican fraudster George Santos, whose congressional career famously collapsed under the staggering weight of his lies and criminal schemes, was sentenced to more than seven years in prison Friday in a Long Island courtroom.
The term marks the end of a staggering fall for the disgraced Queens politician, who broke down in tears when he heard his sentence. Santos, wearing a gray suit with blue sweater and tie, was also ordered to pay $373,749 in restitution to his victims. He was told to surrender to the court on July 25.
Santos received the full sentence of 87 months that prosecutors were seeking for a string of scams, including stealing the identities of 11 people to falsely report tens of thousands of dollars in donations to his campaign, using his donors' credit card information to buy designer clothes and pay personal debts, and tricking donors into giving to a nonprofit that led to his personal bank account.
His lawyers, citing a litany of childhood and personal problems, including mental illness, had asked for the minimum two years.
Santos, 36, became a national punchline within weeks of his 2022 election to the House of Representatives, when the New York Times started pulling on the threads of his personal biography.
His numerous fabrications including claims that he graduated from Baruch College and attended New York University, and that he was once employed by Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. At one point he said he was Jewish and that his grandparents fled the Holocaust, but that claim also fell apart under scrutiny.
Santos's profile went from an 'SNL' punchline to a criminal matter in 2023, when federal prosecutors indicted him on a litany of charges. From the start, legal experts described prosecutors' case as a slam dunk.
The House of Representatives expelled him in December 2023, and in August, Santos pleaded guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, three weeks before he was set to go to trial.
In a letter to Long Island Federal Court Judge Joanna Seybert, Santos' lawyers laid out a very different biography than the one he tried to sell to voters and campaign donors.
'His father had 'high drinking proclivities' and his mother gambled frequently, his lawyers wrote, and the two divorced in 2000. He moved to Brazil with his mother and sister after fourth grade, and when he returned to New York, he attended William Cullen Bryant High School in Queens for just a month in 2004, before leaving because he 'was being bullied by older students,' his lawyers wrote. He got a high school equivalency diploma in 2006.
His lawyers also describe Santos' struggle with mental illness, including a voluntary committal in 2013 or 2014, and touch on problems with alcohol consumption.
He's asking for the mandatory minimum two years behind bars.
Federal prosecutors countered last week that Santos's social media activity shows 'he remains unrepentant for his crimes.'
They pointed out an April 4 post on X where he wrote, 'No matter how hard the DOJ comes for me, they are mad because they will NEVER break my spirit.'
In another post, he denied using campaign cash to buy luxury goods from Hermes, even though he didn't object to that detail being in a pre-sentencing report to the court.
In even more posts, he called himself a 'scapegoat' and said Department of Justice officials 'refuse to prosecute the cabal of pedophiles running around in every power structure in the world including the U.S. government.'
Santos tried to explain himself in an over-the-top letter to the judge Saturday.
'Every sunrise since that plea has carried the same realization: I did this, me. I am responsible,' he wrote. 'But saying I'm sorry doesn't require me to sit quietly while these prosecutors try to drop an anvil on my head.'
In another florid passage, he writes, 'The red, white, and blue runs through my veins long before the ink of any plea agreement. … So when I fire back, it isn't vanity or defiance for sport; it's my way of saluting the messy, glorious free-speech tradition that makes this country worth every bruise.'
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