New York SantaCon president charged with wire fraud in charity scheme

(CN) — A grand jury in New York Wednesday indicted the president of SantaCon, a charitable, nonsensical Santa Claus convention and pub crawl, on a wire fraud charge after the FBI said he “stole Christmas.”

“[Stefan] Pildes allegedly stole Christmas from tens of thousands of victims and deprived local charities of more than one million dollars,” said FBI Assistant Director in Charge James C. Barnacle Jr. “The FBI continues to root out scrooges that greedily exploit the goodwill of New Yorkers.”

Pildes, 50, of Hewitt, New Jersey, is charged in the U.S. District Court of New York with one count of wire fraud and faces up to 20 years in prison.

The FBI claims Pildes used SantaCon to raise at least $2.7 million for charity over six years, only to divert more than half to a slush fund and use the remaining proceeds for personal expenses from 2019 to 2024.

SantaCon is a ticketed bar crawl and Santa Claus convention that takes place annually in December across New York City, during which 25,000 attendees don holiday costumes and travel to participating bars to raise money for organizations such as the City Parks Foundation, The Children’s Heart Foundation and Clowns Without Borders.

The organization generates proceeds through bar crawl ticket sales, commissions from host bars along the route and charitable donations, which the SantaCon website claims go “directly to Santa’s charity drive.”

Only a small fraction of the millions raised were donated to charity, according to the FBI, while the rest was funneled into a bank account attached to Creative Opportunities Group — an entity controlled by Pildes with no public connection to SantaCon, according to the FBI.

From there, Pildes apparently used the funds for, among other personal expenses, $365,000 in renovations to a lakefront property in New Jersey, a luxury apartment in Manhattan, a large investment into a friend’s Costa Rica resort and Michelin-starred birthday dinners in New York City.

He also took luxury vacations to Hawaii, Las Vegas and Vail, the FBI says in the indictment.

SantaCon began in 1994 steeped in San Francisco’s anticapitalist counterculture, according to a release from the nonprofit. Today, the event has grown to over 300 events across the globe.

“At the end of the day, SantaCon is about freedom, fun and festive togetherness — celebrating the holiday season by bringing people closer, sparking joy and reminding us all to play,” said the release signed by “Santa.”

The FBI says Pildes will have to forfeit his lakeside New Jersey home and all funds held in the Creative Opportunities Group accounts with JPMorgan Chase Bank.

“As alleged, Stefan Pildes promoted SantaCon as an event grounded in charitable giving, but instead of donating the millions of dollars he raised, he ran his own con game,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton. “He took advantage of New Yorkers’ general holiday spirit to finance his lifestyle through personal expenses, big and small. No matter how you dress it up, fraud is fraud.”

SantaCon is advertised as a “nondenominational, nonpolitical and nonsensical charitable Santa Claus convention that occurs once a year for absolutely no reason” on social media.

In addition to misrepresentations to attendees, the FBI says Pildes also solicited potential bars and restaurants to host stops for the crawl and accepted between 10% and 25% of the sales made as a “charitable commission” or donation, which he agreed to distribute to the same charities listed on the website.

In an informational flyer sent to various venues in 2023, the FBI says Pildes claimed to have raised over $1 million for local New York City charities aimed at funding the arts and fighting hunger.

This, plus the claims made about ticket sale revenues, are knowingly fraudulent promises under the law.

SantaCon organizers couldn’t be immediately reached for comment on the indictment. The next NYC SantaCon event is scheduled for Dec. 12.

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