Officials announced Tuesday that a federal grand jury in Central Islip, New York, returned more charges against George Anthony Devolder Santos (George Santos), 35, a U.S. Congressman, including two counts of wire fraud and two counts of making false statements to the Federal Election Commission.
In addition, Santos, who represents the Third District of New York, was charged with falsification of records, and one count of access device fraud.
Santos was previously charged with an additional seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds, and two counts of making materially false statements to the U.S. House of Representatives in the original indictment.
Santos is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
According to court documents, Santos, who was elected to Congress last November, allegedly engaged in two fraudulent schemes, in addition to the multiple fraudulent schemes alleged in the original indictment.
The Party Program Scheme
According to Tuesday’s new criminal allegations, during the 2022 election cycle, Santos was a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in New York’s Third Congressional District.
Nancy Marks was the treasurer for his principal congressional campaign committee.
During that election cycle, Santos and Marks allegedly devised and executed a fraudulent scheme to obtain money for the campaign by submitting materially false reports to the FEC on behalf of the campaign, in which Santos and
Marks inflated the campaign’s fundraising numbers for the purpose of misleading the FEC, a national party committee, and the public.
Specifically, the purpose of the scheme was to ensure that Santos and his campaign qualified for a program that the national party committee administered, pursuant to which the national party committee would provide financial and logistical support to Santos and his campaign committee.
Santos had to demonstrate, among other things, to qualify for the program, that his congressional campaign had raised at least $250,000 from third-party contributors in a single quarter.
To create the public appearance that his campaign had met that financial benchmark and was otherwise financially viable, Santos and Marks allegedly agreed to falsely report to the FEC that at least ten family members of Santos and Marks had made significant financial contributions to the campaign.
However, Santos and Marks knew that these individuals had neither made the reported contributions nor given authorization for their personal information to be included in such false public reports.
In addition, understanding that the national party committee relied on FEC fundraising data to evaluate candidates’ qualifications for the program, Santos and Marks allegedly agreed to falsely report to the FEC that Santos had loaned the campaign significant sums of money, including in one instance a $500,000 loan, when, in fact, Santos had not made the reported loans and, at the time the loans were written, did not have the funds necessary to make such loans.
Through the execution of this scheme, Santos and Marks ensured that Santos met the necessary financial benchmarks to qualify for the program that the national party committee administered.
As a result of qualifying for the program, the congressional campaign received financial support.
The Credit Card Fraud Scheme
As alleged in the additional fraud charges, between approximately December 2021 and August 2022, Santos devised and executed a fraudulent scheme to steal contributors’ personal identity and financial information for his campaign.
He then allegedly charged contributors’ credit cards repeatedly, without their authorization.
Because of these unauthorized transactions, funds were transferred to Santos’ campaign, to the campaigns of other candidates for elected office, and to his bank account.
To conceal the true source of these funds and circumvent campaign contribution limits, Santos falsely represented that some of the campaign contributions were made by other persons, such as his relatives, associates, or other contributors, rather than the actual cardholders.
Santos did not have authorization to use the cardholders’ names in this way.
For example, in December 2021, one contributor (the contributor) texted Santos and others to contribute to his campaign, providing billing information for two credit cards.
In the days after he received the billing information, Santos allegedly used the credit card information to make numerous contributions to his campaign and affiliated political committees in amounts exceeding applicable contribution limits, without the contributor’s knowledge or authorization.
To mask the true source of these contributions and thereby circumvent the applicable campaign contribution limits, Santos falsely identified the contributor for one of the charges as one of his relatives.
In the following months, Santos allegedly repeatedly charged the contributor’s credit card without the contributor’s knowledge or authorization, attempting to make at least $44,800 in charges and frequently concealing the source of funds by falsely listing the source of funds as Santos himself, his relatives, and other contributors.
On one occasion, Santos charged $12,000 to the contributor’s credit card, ultimately transferring the vast majority of that money into Santos’s personal bank account.
The case is currently scheduled for a status conference before Judge Seybert on Oct. 27.
He faces up to 22 years in federal prison if convicted of the charges.
The FBI is investigating the case, with assistance from the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office.
Trial Attorneys Jacob Steiner and John Taddei of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ryan Harris, Anthony Bagnuola, and Laura Zuckerwise for the Eastern District of New York are prosecuting the case.