Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) is facing 10 new charges in a superseding indictment announced Tuesday, bringing the total number of charges against him to 23, which includes the 13 filed earlier this year.
According to a U.S. Department of Justice release, a federal grand jury in New York returned a superseding indictment on Tuesday. Mr. Santos, a 35-year-old serving his first term in Congress, is now facing a wide array of charges.
The new charges consist of one count of conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, two counts of wire fraud, two counts of making materially false statements to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), two counts of falsification of records submitted to the FEC, two counts of aggravated identity theft, and one count of access device fraud.
Mr. Santos pleaded not guilty in May after he came under a federal indictment on charges of wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds, and lying to Congress.
The 13 counts he was charged with earlier this year include 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 Congress.
On Tuesday evening, Mr. Santos reportedly claimed to have no knowledge of the new charges when he emerged from the GOP conference, telling reporters that he didn’t have access to his phone.
“I have no clue what you guys are talking about,” Mr Santos said, reported a CNN reporter.
In further comments to CBS, Mr. Santos denied the charges, and pledged to fight the indictments “until the bitter end.”
Charged for 2 Schemes
Prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York newly accuse Mr. Santos of filing fraudulent fundraising reports with the FEC to obtain financial support for his campaign, according to the release.According to the latest indictment, during the 2022 elections, Mr. Santos, a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, and Nancy Marks, his treasurer for his primary congressional campaign committee, allegedly orchestrated a scheme to obtain campaign funds by inflating the campaign’s fundraising figures to deceive the FEC, the GOP committee, and the public.
The scheme aimed to meet certain GOP criteria to unlock perks and support by allegedly falsely indicating that the campaign raised over $250,000 from third-party contributors in one quarter. They submitted fabricated FEC reports, falsely claiming that 10 family members made significant contributions to create the illusion the campaign was financially sound, according to the DOJ.
Mr. Santos is alleged to have also repeatedly charged campaign contributors’ credit cards without permission, exploiting their personal and financial information. He’s accused of concealing the source of these funds through unauthorized transactions.
One striking example cited in the indictment involves a contributor who provided billing information for two credit cards in December 2021 to make a campaign contribution. Shortly after receiving this information, Mr. Santos allegedly exploited it to make multiple contributions to his campaign and affiliated political committees, all exceeding the permitted contribution limits and without the contributor’s knowledge or authorization.
To mask the source of these contributions, Mr. Santos is alleged to have falsely identified the contributor as a relative for one of the charges. Over the following months, he purportedly continued to charge the contributor’s credit card without authorization, seeking to accumulate over $44,800 in charges. The origin of each transaction was allegedly masked by falsely representing that they came from Mr. Santos, his relatives, or other contributors. Notably, on one occasion, Mr. Santos allegedly charged $12,000 to the contributor’s credit card, with the bulk of that money ending up in Mr. Santos’s personal bank account, according to the DOJ.
Mr. Santos has faced calls to resign by both Republicans and Democrats due to false claims about his background and finances. Fellow House Republicans have also expressed frustration with his lingering presence in the party, in light of the pending criminal charges.
In April, Mr. Santos announced his intention to seek reelection for his House seat on Long Island. He will face a challenger in former New York Rep. Tom Suozzi, a Democrat, who launched his own campaign for the same seat on Tuesday.
