Disgraced former US Rep. George Santos granted 3-month delay in
sentencing for fraud and ID theft
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[January 09, 2025]
By PHILIP MARCELO
NEW YORK (AP) — Disgraced former congressman George Santos, facing a
federal prison sentence, has won a few months' freedom to come up with
more than half a million dollars in court fines — including from work on
his new podcast.
A New York judge on Wednesday granted the Republican's request to delay
his Feb. 7 sentencing after he pleaded guilty this summer to federal
fraud and identity theft charges.
U.S. District Court Judge Joanna Seybert set the new court date for
April 25, which is about three months less than Santos sought.
The judge called the short adjournment a “one-time courtesy” granted in
the interest of justice.
“Since the date that the defendant entered his plea of guilty, he has
not made any payments toward the amount owed nor has he indicated that
he has funds to do so, despite his promises and predictions,” Seybert
wrote.
Santos admitted in August that he duped voters, deceived donors and
stole the identities of nearly a dozen people, including his own family
members, to make donations to his congressional campaign.
He agreed to pay nearly $375,000 in restitution and $205,000 in
forfeiture and faces a mandatory minimum two-year sentence and up to 22
years in prison.
In a letter to the judge Friday, Santos' lawyers said the 36-year-old
needs more time to build his newly launched podcast “Pants on Fire" in
order to pay off the roughly $580,000 in fines, some of which comes due
before his sentencing.
Prosecutors opposed the delay in a letter Tuesday, dismissing Santos'
promises of a forthcoming windfall as “extremely speculative."
They also cast doubt on his claim of having little more than $1,000 in
liquid assets, arguing he's earned more than $800,000 from appearances
on the video-sharing website Cameo and from a new documentary since he
was expelled from Congress in 2023.
U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace's office
declined to comment.
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Former U.S. Rep. George Santos arrives at court in Central Islip,
N.Y., Monday, Aug. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah, File)
Lawyers for Santos didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking
comment.
But in a letter filed Wednesday ahead of the judge's ruling, they
called prosecutors' financial critiques “false and misleading" and
said their request to buy Santos more time to “muster a substantial
lump-sum payment” and prepare for sentencing was “hardly
extraordinary."
They said Santos hasn't earned more than $400,000 from Cameo, as
prosecutors claim, but closer to $350,000 and that the profits were
primarily used to pay legal fees and living expenses for him and his
family long before he reached a plea deal.
Since then, they said, Santos has been unsuccessful in "securing
meaningful income” outside of the podcast he launched just last
month.
"The government’s reckless misrepresentations to this Court," they
wrote, “appears to have been intended to capture tabloid headlines
rather than advance the interests of justice it purports to
champion."
Santos was elected in 2022 to represent a wealthy New York district
covering parts of Queens and Long Island.
But the once-rising Republican lasted barely a year in office as his
fabricated life story unraveled. His claims of a career at top Wall
Street firms and having a college degree were debunked, and
questions were raised about how he funded his campaign.
Santos became just the sixth House member in the chamber’s history
to be ousted by colleagues.
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