Former Republican Rep. George Santos faces seven years in prison, New York prosecutors said in a Friday filing.
In August, Santos pleaded guilty to charges of wire fraud and identity theft during the 2022 election cycle, according to Reuters.
In May 2023, he was indicted for stealing from donors, using campaign money for personal expenses, and receiving unemployment benefits despite being employed.
During his 2022 campaign, Santos also made numerous fictitious claims about his credentials, saying he had attended New York University, worked at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, and that his grandparents escaped the Nazis during World War II.
“From his creation of a wholly fictitious biography to his callous theft of money from elderly and impaired donors, Santos’s unrestrained greed and voracious appetite for fame enabled him to exploit the very system by which we select our representatives,” the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York wrote in the filing, according to Fox News.
The DOJ wants me to go to prison for 87 months while they let sex traffickers walk freely, they give drug lords slaps on the wrist and most importantly refuse to prosecute the cabal of pedophiles running around in every power structure in the world including the US Government.
— Rep. George Santos (@RepSantosNY03) April 5, 2025
Santos’s legal team is asking that he only receive the minimum sentence for his crimes, which would be 24 months, according to The Hill.
“The government wants headlines, not justice. This vindictive 87-month demand ignores sentencing norms for similar cases,” said Andrew Mancilla, Santos’s lawyer.
After the August hearing, Santos apologized to his supporters outside the courthouse in Central Islip, New York.
“I deeply regret my conduct and the harm it has caused and accept full responsibility for my actions,” he said.
But prosecutors aren’t buying Santos’s “remorse.”
“Against that backdrop, moreover, Santos’s post-plea claims of remorse ring hollow. As of this writing, despite years of actively courting media attention and capitalizing on his infamy, Santos has forfeited nothing of his ill-gotten gains and has not repaid one cent to any of the victims of his financial crimes,” prosecutors wrote in the filing.
Following the campaign controversy, Santos became the sixth House member and first Republican to be expelled from Congress, according to Fox News.
He was asked to pay $205,000 in forfeiture and $375,000 in restitution, but he still hasn’t paid either, according to The Hill.
Santos was supposed to be sentenced in February, but he asked the court to postpone the date so he could pay the fines with his “Pants on Fire” podcast income, according to Fox News.
But prosecutors said Santos had acquired nearly $800,000 using the Cameo app, in which he charged viewers to see his drag queen performances as “Kitara Ravache.”
Santos previously denied ever dressing as a drag queen.
The judge is likely to make a ruling on April 25, The Hill reported.
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