U.S. Rep. George Santos, the New York Republican infamous for fabricating key parts of his life story, has been indicted on charges that he embezzled money from his campaign, lied to Congress about his income and cheated his way into undeserved unemployment benefits, prosecutors said Wednesday. The indictment says Santos induced supporters to donate to a company under the false pretense that the money would be used to support his campaign. Instead, it says, he used it for personal expenses, including to buy designer clothes and to pay his credit cards and car payments. Santos also is accused of lying about his finances on congressional disclosure forms and applying for and receiving unemployment benefits while he was employed as regional director of an investment firm that the government shut down in 2021 over allegations that it was a Ponzi scheme. U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said the indictment “seeks to hold Santos accountable for various alleged fraudulent schemes and brazen misrepresentations.” “Taken together, the allegations in the indictment charge Santos with relying on repeated dishonesty and deception to ascend to the halls of Congress and enrich himself,” Peace said. Santos surrendered Wednesday and was taken to a federal courthouse on Long Island, where he was expected to make an initial court appearance later in the day on charges of wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and making false statements to Congress. Reached by The Associated Press on Tuesday, Santos said he was unaware of the charges. Santos, 34, was elected to Congress last fall after a campaign built partly on falsehoods. He told people he was a wealthy Wall Street dealmaker with a substantial real estate portfolio who had been a star volleyball player in college, among other things. In reality, Santos didn’t work at the big financial firms he claimed had employed him, didn’t go to college and struggled financially before his run for public office. He claimed he fueled his run largely with self-made riches, earned from brokering deals on expensive toys for wealthy clients, but the indictment alleges those boasts were also exaggerated. In regulatory filings, Santos claimed he loaned his campaign and related political action committees more than $750,000, but it was unclear how he would have come into that kind of wealth so quickly after years in which he struggled to pay his rent and faced multiple eviction proceedings. In a financial disclosure form, Santos reported making $750,000 a year from a family company, the Devolder Organization, but the charges unsealed Wednesday allege that Santos never received that sum, nor the $1 million and $5 million in dividends he listed as coming from the firm. Santos has described the Devolder Organization as a broker for sales of luxury items like yachts and aircraft. The business was incorporated in Florida shortly after Santos stopped working as a salesman for Harbor City Capital, the company accused by federal authorities of operating an illegal Ponzi scheme. In November 2021, Santos formed Redstone Strategies, a Florida company that federal prosecutors say he used to dupe donors into financing his lifestyle. According to the indictment, Santos told an associate to solicit contributions to the company via emails, text message and phone calls and provided the person with contact information for potential contributors. Emails to prospective donors falsely claimed that […]
The post REP. SANTOS SURRENDERS: Charged In Web Of Fraud, Money laundering, Theft, False Statements appeared first on The Yeshiva World.