Mr. Santos, whose trial on 23 felony charges was scheduled to begin on Sept. 9, could still change his mind.
But this week, two lawyers representing multiple witnesses in the case were told by federal prosecutors that Mr. Santos had decided to plead guilty.
Mr. Santos and one of his lawyers, Joseph Murray, did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Santos, 36, was first indicted on 13 charges in May 2023 after a lengthy investigation into a series of financial crimes that federal prosecutors accused him of.
But the price soon fell, leaving Mr. Santos to explore other moneymaking bids, from a documentary to a cryptocurrency project.
A federal trial was scheduled to start next month, but according to two attorneys involved in the case and two other people with knowledge of the situation, George Santos, the former Republican congressman from New York who was brought down by an astounding array of biographical lies and moneymaking schemes, has informed prosecutors that he wants to enter a guilty plea in order to bypass it.
The plea is scheduled to take place in Central Islip, New York’s Federal District Court on Monday. Y. would have spared Mr. Dot Santos from a trial that would have most likely been a colorful show.
Mr. Santos’ trial was set to start on September 23 for 23 felonies. 9, had the ability to change his mind. However, federal prosecutors informed the two attorneys representing the case’s numerous witnesses this week that Mr. Santos had chosen to enter a guilty plea.
Records from the public court indicate that prosecutors and Mr. Santos’s attorneys requested an in-person hearing, which is set for Monday afternoon. The transcripts lacked an explanation of the hearing’s goal. Requests for comment from Mr. Dot Santos and Joseph Murray, one of his attorneys, went unanswered.
Talking Points Memo broke the initial news about the anticipated plea.
Alright, Mr. After a protracted investigation into several financial offenses that federal prosecutors claimed Santos, 36, had committed, he was first indicted on 13 counts in May 2023. In October, there were ten more counts.
Hey, Mr. In an apparent attempt to invoke former President Donald J. Trump, Santos had initially entered a not guilty plea to all counts. Trump called the investigation “a witch hunt.”. His apparent course correction comes months after he was voted out of office by two-thirds of his peers in the House of Representatives in December, making him just the sixth member of the House to be expelled in its history.
In connection with their campaign, two of his campaign employees entered guilty pleas. His former campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks, entered a guilty plea to manipulating the campaign’s financial records last year while working with Mr. Dot Santos. She was also involved in the false reporting of a purported $500,000 loan that Mr. Dot Santos had given to his campaign. Attorneys this week refused to say if they planned to ask Ms. Marks to testify during Mr. Dot Santos’s trial.
Most of the charges in the indictment against Mr. Santos had to do with his victorious congressional campaign in 2022 in the Third Congressional District of New York, which includes portions of northeast Queens and Nassau County on Long Island. Prosecutors claimed that Mr. Santos and Ms. Marks purposefully fabricated his official documents, including the fictitious $500,000 loan and nonexistent donations, in order to improve the campaign’s standing and win over national Republicans.
Mr. Along with repeatedly charging donors’ credit cards and requesting donations to what they claimed was a super PAC, Santos was also accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars from contributors. According to the prosecution, Mr. Dot Santos used part of the funds for his and other candidates’ campaigns and used the rest for luxury designer clothes and credit card debt.
Mr. Santos was also accused of obtaining $24,000 in unemployment benefits when he was actually employed and lying about his income on his House disclosure form.
A court hearing earlier this week gave the impression that preparations were underway for a trial. The prosecution claimed to have up to 30 witnesses in line, and the court had already called roughly 800 prospective jurors.
Dear Mr. At the Tuesday hearing, Santos entered his plea of not guilty on 23 counts of conspiracy, aggravated identity theft, wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds, and lying on federal disclosure forms.
Mr. Santos’s unexpected victory in 2022 contributed to his party’s takeover of the House of Representatives, and this plea is the last in a stunning turn of events for him. Referring to himself as the “new face of the Republican Party,” Mr. Santos used his status as a gay man and the son of immigrants to prove that Republican principles were popular. This helped him win his seat.
Hey, Mr. But a New York Times article that revealed that almost all of the other information about Santos’s background in his voter pitch was false undermined the politician’s chances of winning. Contrary to his claims, he had neither managed a real estate portfolio nor worked on Wall Street. He didn’t actually possess any of the degrees or wealth that he claimed to have on his resume.
Hey, Mr. Santos’s numerous lies came to light, exposing that he had made up information about things as trivial as a college volleyball scholarship and as important as family connections to tragedies like Sept. 11 and the Shoah.
Mr. Santos enjoyed a brief period of popularity after being kicked out of the House when he was able to charge up to $500 for customized video messages on the website Cameo.
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