Former Rep. George Santos pleads guilty to fraud charges

George Santos, the disgraced former congressman whose political career unraveled after he admitted having fabricated key elements of his background, pleaded guilty Monday to a pair of felony fraud charges.

Santos, who was expelled from Congress on Dec. 1, was facing a 23-count superseding indictment in U.S. District Court in 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 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.

He appeared to be choking back tears as he spoke to reporters outside the Alfonse M. D’Amato U.S. Courthouse in Central Islip afterward.

“I am dedicated to making amends for the wrongs I have committed,” he said. “This plea is not just an admission of guilt. It’s an acknowledgment I need to be held accountable like any other American that breaks the law.”

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.”

He “rode into court on a campaign of lies,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace told reporters outside court, and now, “finally, under oath, told the truth. And the truth is that he’s a criminal.”

As part of the deal, Santos pleaded guilty to the wire fraud and identity theft charges but admitted to all of the conduct he was charged with, including falsely claiming Covid unemployment benefits when he was employed, swindling donors and using the identities of his relatives to enrich himself and live a luxurious lifestyle.

“By pleading guilty, Mr. Santos has acknowledged that he repeatedly defrauded federal and state government institutions as well as his own family, supporters and constituents. His flagrant and disgraceful conduct has been exposed and will be punished,” Peace said in a statement later Monday.

The charges carry a minimum of two years in prison and a maximum of 22 years.

U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert told Santos that sentencing guidelines call for him to serve six to eight years. He’ll be sentenced 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 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 he had lied about or embellished certain parts of his résumé and personal history. More fabrications soon came to light, including a claim that he was Jewish. He later said he was “Jew-ish.”

After a scathing House Ethics report concluded there was “substantial evidence” that he “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.

Santos later began selling personalized video messages on the website Cameo for $400 apiece — and he sued late night host Jimmy Kimmel in February over a segment on his show stemming from the videos called “Will Santos Say It.”

The bit featured outlandish fan requests to Santos to see whether he would accept the payment to do the videos. One of the requests asked him to congratulate a legally blind girl who had just gotten her driver’s license and subsequently got into a car accident, while another asked him to show support for a man who identifies as a “furry” and whose “‘fursona’ is a platypus mixed with a beaver.” Santos delivered videos for each of those requests.

Santos sued Kimmel for playing some of the video responses on the air, saying he was misled into making them and seeking more than $150,000 in damages for copyright infringement. U.S. District Judge Denise Cote dismissed the suit Monday.

The judge found “a reasonable observer would understand that JKL [‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’] showed the Videos to comment on the willingness of Santos — a public figure who had recently been expelled from Congress for allegedly fraudulent activity including enriching himself through a fraudulent contribution scheme — to say absurd things for money. Thus, the Videos were used for political commentary and criticism.”