George Santos gets over 7 years for wire fraud

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. — A federal judge on Friday ordered ex-U.S. Representative George Santos to serve 87 months, just over seven years, in prison.

The 36-year-old former lawmaker for New York’s 3rd Congressional District pleaded guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in August 2024, avoiding a trial scheduled weeks later. He faced a minimum two and maximum 22 years in prison.

Santos admitted he lied to federal and state institutions to get unemployment benefits during the Covid-19 pandemic. He also overstated his income and assets in a financial disclosure statement submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives ahead of his second campaign for office.

U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert imposed the sentence requested by the government and slammed Santos, who pleaded for the minimum two years, for his lack of remorse for swindling 21 victims — who included a 73-year-old physically disabled woman with brain damage and two 86-year-old men, one of whom had dementia — out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Ahead of his sentencing, Santos took to social media calling himself a scapegoat and accusing the government of missing a filing deadline. He wrote on X, “No matter how hard the DOJ comes for me, they are mad because they will NEVER break my spirit.”

In another post he wrote, “The DOJ wants me to go to prison for 87 months while they let sex traffickers walk freely, they give drug lords slaps on the wrist and most importantly refuse to prosecute the cabal of pedophiles running around in every power structure in the world including the US Government.”

In another post he wrote, “The DOJ wants me to go to prison for 87 months while they let sex traffickers walk freely, they give drug lords slaps on the wrist and most importantly refuse to prosecute the cabal of pedophiles running around in every power structure in the world including the US Government.”

Seybert on Friday asked rhetorically whether Santos was someone who “now falls on his knees” in contrition, “or is he an arrogant fraudster talking out of both sides of his mouth,” accusing others of wrongdoing rather than taking accountability.

“Where is the remorse? Where did I see it?” Seybert asked. “It’s always somebody’s fault.”

After sentencing Santos, who asked to serve his time in the northeast at a facility with mental health treatment, Seybert suggested one with educational resources, too.

“You’re a bright man, Mr. Santos. There’s no reason you have to commit crimes to support yourself,” she said.

Defense attorney Andrew Mancilla sought to explain Santos’ litany of lies as being the result of a troubled childhood marked by poverty, bullying and his parents’ divorce.

“He is a 36-year-old gay man with no prior criminal record who comes from a broken home,” the Mancilla & Fantone attorney said.

Mancilla continued: “He built this alternate ego that he’s shown the world” — a man who’s independently wealthy and well-educated — “I think the reason he did all that is he didn’t think the world would accept him for who he was … Deep down, he is warm. He is kind. He is funny. He is caring. He is thoughtful.”

Yet Santos’ unemployment fraud pulled dollars away from public safety nets and undermined public trust in the officials who run such programs, said Roberta Reardon, commissioner of the New York State Labor Department, during a victim statement.

“Millions of New Yorkers were truly struggling to make ends meet week after week,” Reardon said. “He attested that he was unable to work through no fault of his own all while earning a $120,000 salary.”

In tears, Santos could barely get the words out to deliver his own statement.

“I stand here humble, chastened, and fully accountable for the choices I made,” said Santos, who was, in fact, sitting.

“I offer my deepest apologies,” he said. “I cannot rewrite the past but I can control the road ahead.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan Harris argued that Santos’ crimes were out of greed, not necessity, and said there was no reason for the judge to reduce his sentence in large part because of his character.

“He has repeatedly proven himself, not able to tell the truth with any measure of regularity or reliability,” Harris said. And although he drives a Jaguar, has a Rolex and has raked in hundreds of thousands from Cameo and his documentary, Santos has said he’s unable to pay the $373,700 in restitution and $205,000 in forfeiture he owes.

“His campaign for Congress didn’t turn him into a fraudster. It simply revealed him for what he already was,” Harris said.

Santos was expelled from Congress in December 2023 after the House Ethics Committee concluded in a report that he “sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit."

He made false statements to the Federal Election Commission and spent campaign funds on Botox, designer clothes and the adult content platform OnlyFans, the committee found.

Democrat Tom Suozzi won a special election last year and reclaimed his previous seat representing New York’s 3rd Congressional District. He had the job from 2017 until 2023 when Santos took over, having won after Suozzi opted to run for governor.

Even before prosecutors unsealed charges against him in May of 2023, Santos’ brief political career was marked by discoveries that he’d told a series of blatant, at times bizarre lies about his personal background during his campaign.

He falsely claimed to have graduated from Baruch College in New York and lied about working at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. He also stated that his mother was killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks when in fact she died in 2016, and misrepresented his ancestral and religious background, claiming to be both Jewish and Catholic.

Yet propulsion to household name status, including a recurring spoof on Saturday Night Live, yielded something of a cult fanbase for Santos. He became a popular figure on Cameo, a platform that lets users pay for personalized videos from celebrities, reportedly raking in at least $400,000 from the side hustle. (Santos claims the number was $350,000, and that he spent it on legal fees and living expenses for himself and family members.)

His soaring internet popularity made him a target of late night host Jimmy Kimmel, who repeatedly pranked Santos with absurd Cameo requests and aired the videos in a segment titled “Will Santos Say It?”

The former lawmaker responded with a lawsuit; it flopped and Santos appealed.

Santos’ former campaign fundraiser Samuel Miele also pleaded guilty to wire fraud, and his former campaign treasurer Nancy Marks did the same for one felony count of conspiracy to defraud the United States. Marks also admitted to making false statements, obstructing the administration of the FEC and committing aggravated identity theft. She’s set to be sentenced later this month.

In the months before his guilty plea, Santos briefly floated another run for Congress, but he pulled back from the notion last spring.

He apologized to former constituents at his plea hearing.

“It has been the proudest achievement of my life to represent you and I believe I did so to the best of my abilities,” Santos said. “But you also trusted me to represent you with honor and to uphold the values that are essential to our democracy and, in that regard, I failed you.”

The Republican ex-lawmaker told Spectrum NY1 he has not reached out to President Donald Trump for a pardon.

“I believe that also the president is aware of my situation, I don’t think I need to petition him. If he feels like I am worthy of a commutation, or of clemency, or whatever the case is, he can make that decision without me having to put a spectacle on television like most people are doing right now.”

Follow @NinaPullano