Friday, June 30th:
*Pretrial Hearing (@ am) - NY - U.S. District Court Eastern District of New York vs. Rep. George Anthony Devolder Santos (34) indicted & charged (5/8/23) & arrested & arraigned (5/10/23) with 7 counts of wire fraud, 3 counts of money laundering, 1 count of theft of public funds ($24K) & 2 counts of making materially false statements to the House of Representatives. Plead not guilty. Released (5/10/23) on $500K bond. Surrendered his passports & has travel restrictions.
U.S. representative for New York's 3rd congressional district, serving since Jan. 7, 2023.
Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Kenneth A. Polite, Jr., Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, and Michael J. Driscoll, Assistant Director-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI), & Anne T. Donnelly, District Attorney, Nassau County, announced the charges.
The government’s case is being prosecuted by the Office’s Public Integrity Section, the Long Island Criminal Division & the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section. Assistant United States Attorneys Ryan Harris, Anthony Bagnuola, & Laura Zuckerwise, along with Trial Attorneys Jolee Porter & Jacob Steiner, are in charge of the prosecution with assistance from Paralegal Specialist Rachel Friedman. Senior Litigation Counsel Victor R. Salgado of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section provided substantial contributions to the prosecution.
5/9/23 Update: The indictment was returned yesterday under seal by a federal grand jury sitting in Central Islip, New York. Santos was arrested this morning & will be arraigned this afternoon, 5/10/23 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Arlene R. Lindsay at the federal courthouse in Central Islip, New York. The charges in the indictment are merely allegations & the defendant is presumed innocent unless & until proven guilty. If convicted of the charges, Santos faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for the top counts. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines & other statutory factors.
5/10/23 Update: 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 luxury designer clothes & to pay off his credit cards. He is accused of lying about his finances on congressional disclosure forms & applying for & receiving unemployment benefits while he was employed as regional director of an investment firm & running for Congress. Santos plead not guilty to charges of fraud, money laundering & theft of public funds. Released on a $500K bond. Santos also surrendered his passport. Also, his travel outside of DC/NYC/LI must be pre approved. Santos’ attorney noted his re-election campaign, saying he wants to have “freedom to engage” in that The judge reiterated that if it’s outside those areas, it needs approval. US Magistrate Judge Anne Shields allowed Santos to be released on a $500,000 bond that would be cosigned by three different suretors who would guarantee the bail funds. The judge held a secret hearing with the three people on the hook for his $500K bond & went to extraordinary lengths to keep their identities secret, according to a new court filing. Santos was arraigned in federal court on Long Island on 5/10/23, pleading not guilty to a 13-count criminal indictment where federal prosecutors alleged he stole funds from political donors meant for campaign expenses, illegally took pandemic unemployment payouts & lied to Congress on financial forms. The secrecy surrounding the identities of the three guarantors means that the public has no way of knowing who is ensuring that Santos, an elected official, is allowed to stay out of jail ahead of a trial on the criminal charges against him.
5/25/23 Update: In a letter filed to court Wednesday, Dana R. Green, a lawyer for The New York Times, said the court held another secret hearing with the sponsors. It's unclear whether the hearing was overseen by Shields or US District Judge Joanna Seybert, to whom Santos's case has since been assigned. The Times's letter asked Seybert to unseal any bond records, as well as the transcript of the sealed hearing with the bail sponsors. Criminal defendants sometimes ask judges to keep the names & other personal details of their bond sponsors under seal. Back in court on 6/30/23.
6/6/23 Update: U.S. Magistrate Judge Anne Shields on Tuesday granted media organizations’ requests to unseal the names of the people who cosigned Santos’s $500K bond in his criminal fraud case. The order is a blow to Santos, whose attorney Monday asked a judge to keep the names of the bond cosigners sealed. The congressman’s lawyer, Joseph Murray, expressed concern for the sponsors should their identities be revealed, citing a “media frenzy” around the Santos case. “If this Court is so inclined to unseal the sureties, we truly fear for their health, safety & well being,” Murray said. U.S. Magistrate Judge Anne Shields gave Santos until noon Friday, 6/9/23 to appeal the ruling, ordering the names to remain under seal in the meantime. Murray previously indicated Santos would rather go to jail ahead of trial rather than allow the suretors to face the public attention. “My client would rather surrender to pretrial detainment than subject these suretors to what will inevitably come,” Murray said
6/9/23 Update: Rep. George Santos wants to protect family members by asking the courts to keep his bond cosigners secret as he fights criminal charges, his lawyer told a Long Island federal judge Friday as he asked her to reverse a magistrate judge’s decision to make the names public. Attorney Joseph Murray said in a letter to Judge Joanna Seybert that Santos would agree to the disclosure that there is a “family” relationship between the Republican congressman & those who signed his bond.
6/22/23 Update: Santos' bond co-signers have been unsealed. His father, Gercino dos Santos, Jr. & his aunt, Elma Santos Preven are the co-signers for the %500K bond.
