Disgraced ex-LI Rep. George Santos sentenced to more than 7 years in prison

George Santos, the ex-Long Island congressman who prosecutors said told a slew of lies as he committed a series of frauds that included ripping off his own political donors and lying to Congress, sobbed in court as he was sentenced Friday to more than 7 years in a federal prison.

The stiff sentence of 87 months, which prosecutors had requested, left Santos in tears, his shoulders hunched as he hung his head over the defense table. One of his lawyers rubbed his back.

Santos, whose propensity for lying had elevated the one-time freshman congressman into a national embarrassment even before he was slapped with a federal indictment, tearfully apologized for his conduct before the sentence was imposed.

"I betrayed the confidence entrusted in me by my constituents — for that I offer my deepest apologies," said Santos, who was ordered to surrender to start serving his sentence on July 25.

U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert, before imposing the sentence, said Santos had engaged in "flagrant thievery."

"I have sympathy for you, sir," Seybert said, adding she takes no pleasure in sending defendants to prison.

Santos, in a charcoal gray suit, left court in a white SUV with his attorneys without commenting to a slew of journalists seeking his reaction.

U.S. Attorney John Durham, of the Eastern District of New York, and the team of line prosecutors on the case were greeted by applause from a group of anti-Santos demonstrators as Durham addressed reporters outside.

"Thank you!" someone shouted to Durham, who replied: "You're welcome!"

"Today, finally, Santos has been held accountable for his years of fraud, deceit and theft," Durham said, reading from prepared remarks. "He's going to federal prison. He's going to be punished for his staggering fraud, abuses on our electoral process, for mocking our democratic institutions and most importantly, for betraying and defrauding his supporters, his voters, his donors, federal agencies [and] state agencies."

Santos engaged in a variety of illegal schemes as he sought a congressional seat. He fraudulently received unemployment benefits authorized during the coronavirus pandemic, lied on his congressional financial disclosure forms, filed fraudulent fundraising reports to get support for his congressional campaign and stole thousands of dollars from his campaign contributors by charging their credit cards without authorization, prosecutors have said.

George Anthony Devolder Santos, 36, who grew up in Queens, had pleaded guilty to aggravated identity theft and wire fraud last August as the start to his trial loomed in the fall.

Santos' lawyers had appealed to the judge for a relatively short prison stint of 2 years, while prosecutors called Santos "unrepentant" and said he should spend more than 7 years in prison.

"That's not gonna be possible," Seybert said Friday of the defense's requested sentence.

Friday's sentencing came almost three years after his ascent on the national political scene as a newly elected member of Congress in a swing district was abruptly upended.

Santos, a Republican, was exposed as a perpetual liar in a New York Times story just weeks after he won the 2022 election against Democrat Robert Zimmerman, revealing that much of Santos' professional resume and personal accomplishments were made up. He later admitted to embellishments. He hadn't graduated from Baruch College or gotten an MBA from New York University or worked for Goldman Sachs or Citigroup, as he had claimed.

The Times also reported that he had been charged in connection with check fraud in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where his family hailed from and he had spent time living as an adolescent and young adult. He later settled that case by agreeing to pay a fine.

Other publications jumped on the Santos scandal, uncovering scores of untruths, including Santos' claim to have been a star volleyball player at Baruch. Santos had also falsely claimed he was Jewish and that his mother was working in the World Trade Center when the terrorist attack took place on Sept. 11, 2001 — assertions that were debunked.

One of Santos' attorneys, Andrew Mancilla, attempted to provide context in court Friday to what he said was the caricature of his client in the media as "an evil doer."

Santos came from "an impoverished, broken home," Mancilla said with "constant fighting and bullying." His formal education was "sporadic."

"He thought the world wouldn't accept him for what he was," said Mancilla, adding: "He built a man that he wanted to be."

His client, Mancilla said, has already been punished severely, noting his relatives in Sweden know Santos' name and face.

"He's been humiliated over and over," Mancilla said.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan Harris said Santos' crimes were "unprecedented" and left 21 victims, some of whom were elderly and even suffering from dementia, swindled out of about $170,000.

"He rose to one of the highest offices in the land on a wave of lies ... and committed crime after crime after crime," Harris said.

 Harris cited the sentences of former Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano and ex-Speaker Sheldon Silver as examples of judges appropriately considering "the unique betrayal of the public trust" when elected officials commit crimes. 

Santos' apologies, Harris said, "appear at the very least begrudgingly" and "while relentlessly pursuing fame."

Harris asked the judge to consider Santos' "deep moral ethical defects."

"His candidacy for Congress didn't turn him into a fraudster, it just provided him a platform to do it on a much larger scale," Harris said.

Richard Osthoff, a disabled U.S. Navy veteran from New Jersey, also went public with claims that Santos, purporting to run a pet charity, swindled him out of donations meant for his sick dog's surgery. Santos never provided the funds and the dog named Sapphire died, he said.

Osthoff celebrated Santos' sentence outside the courthouse Friday, saying he enjoyed watching Santos cry, likening it to the tears he shed over Sapphire's death.

"I was on my knees, blubbering in the shower," Osthoff said. "It was good to see that; it really was."

 A group of residents called Concerned Citizens of NY-03 decried Santos' refusal to leave Congress. Many groups refused to seek constituent services, such as help with passport applications, from Santos' office, and instead turned to the offices of other members of Congress from Long Island.

In a statement released Friday by Great Neck resident Jody Kass Finkel, founder and coordinator of Concerned Citizens of NY-03, she said: "George Santos is a liar and a criminal. For eleven months his lies turned New York’s Third Congressional District into an international laughingstock. Having a fraudster as our Representative in Washington took away our access to help with federal agencies, and most importantly our voice. Our community will never forget this deception." 

Santos also became something of a pariah among his colleagues on Capitol Hill, with some fellow Republicans calling for him to resign, and even some within the storied Republican machine on Long Island. Nassau Republican chairman Joseph Cairo and other top party leaders held a news conference and called for Santos' immediate resignation just days after he was sworn-in to represent New York's 3rd Congressional District, not wanting Santos' lies to tarnish the GOP brand.

On Capitol Hill, large crowds of reporters convened outside his office every morning and followed him through the House's hallways, peppering him with questions, including whether he would resign.

 By the end of January 2023, 78% of residents in the 3rd Congressional District thought Santos should resign, a Newsday/Siena College poll found. 

But prosecutors said Santos' conduct went beyond lying on a résumé. Prosecutors said Santos submitted false reports to the Federal Election Commission during the 2022 election cycle, along with his campaign treasurer Nancy Marks, which inflated the campaign’s fundraising in order to qualify for a fund-matching program administered by the Republican National Committee.

Santos and Marks, who has pleaded guilty to her part in the scheme and is set to be sentenced next month, falsely claimed on forms that 11 of their family members had contributed to Santos’ campaign. Santos, who at the time had less than $8,000 in his personal and business bank accounts, also falsely claimed he had lent his campaign $500,000.

Santos also charged his campaign contributors’ credit cards repeatedly without their authorization between July 2020 and October 2022, prosecutors have said. Santos also received more than $24,000 in unemployment benefits from New York State even though he was employed during that time, prosecutors said. And Santos also made several false statements on his House of Representatives financial disclosure statement, vastly overstating his income and assets, prosecutors said.

Santos, as part of his plea agreement, also stipulated to four offenses that can be used against him at sentencing: access device fraud for using other people’s personal identification and credit card numbers without their knowledge; wire fraud for communicating false information about Redstone Strategies and using money received for campaign advertising for his personal benefit; theft of public money for receiving unemployment benefits while employed between June 2020 and April 2021, and making false statements about his income and assets on financial disclosure statements.

Santos, who had never before held elected office, also became a national punchline. Comedian Bill Maher turned the name of one of the best known liars into a verb in describing Santos, saying he "Pinocchio-ed himself into Congress."

The notoriety he achieved helped line his pockets. After he was ejected from Congress, he joined the video sharing website Cameo, at one point charging $600 for videos.

Santos ultimately earned $366,390.70 from Cameo, one of his lawyers said in court Friday.

The judge chided Santos for not using any of the money he earned from Cameo and his participation in a documentary to pay his restitution.

"It's incredible, incredible to me that he didn't open a savings account and that he did not stop with the lies," said Seybert, who also sentenced Santos to 2 years of supervised release.

But she told Santos to concentrate on his future.

"You're a brilliant person ... forget the lack of education," Seybert told Santos.

Since he's been out of Congress, he began writing a column focused on national politics for the South Shore Press. Most recently, he started a podcast with an ample title: "Pants On Fire With George Santos."

Though Santos admitted misrepresenting parts of his past, he rejected calls to resign. He vowed to run for reelection even after he was arrested and charged.

But just 11 months after he had taken office, a majority of his fellow House members voted to eject him from the body after a House ethics investigation found he had engaged in "unlawful conduct" and had used campaign funds to pay for personal expenses, such as Botox treatments and shopping at luxury boutique Hermes.

Santos was the first member of Congress to be removed without first being convicted in a criminal court and only the 6th member to be ousted from the body in American history.

Santos held the seat for 329 days, Newsday has reported. Rep. Tom Suozzi, a Democrat, succeeded him.

Two Santos associates also pleaded guilty in the case.

Marks admitted in October she filed false reports with both the FEC and the Republican National Committee. The reports included the names of false donors to artificially inflate the amount of funds Santos raised to meet necessary benchmarks for matching funds.

Ex-fundraiser Samuel Miele also pleaded guilty to wire fraud and admitted he had impersonated a top aide to a high-ranking congressional leader — identified as former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — while soliciting a financial contribution to the Santos campaign from a donor in August 2021. Miele was sentenced to 1 year and 1 day in prison.

Santos was arrested on a 13-count indictment in May 2023 and released on a $500,000 bond guaranteed by his father and aunt. Days after Marks pleaded guilty, prosecutors announced a superseding indictment with 10 new charges.

Last August, Santos pleaded guilty to aggravated identity theft and wire fraud. He apologized, saying: "I deeply regret my conduct and the harm it has caused and accept full responsibility for my actions."

Still, legal drama ensued.

Santos' attorneys asked the court for a delay in his sentencing to the summer to allow for Santos' podcast, which had not yet been broadcast, to get on the air and began making money to allow the former lawmaker to pay the $205,000 in forfeiture and $373,000, which was part of the plea agreement.

Santos also began bashing federal prosecutors on X, formerly known as Twitter, accusing them of getting to "step on my neck" and trying to "break my spirit."

The prosecution, in a letter to the judge, called Santos' online conduct "antithetical" to the remorse he expressed when he pleaded guilty, saying he was approaching sentencing "with belligerence and an insatiable appetite for 'likes,' blaming his situation on everyone except himself."

Santos responded in a lengthy letter to the judge, criticizing prosecutors for seeking a sentence of more than 7 years and trying to impede on his free speech rights by complaining about his social media posts.

"The government should be ashamed of itself for even seeking such a high sentence," Santos said.

 Santos never sought a pardon from President Donald Trump, he said in an interview this week with NY1, though Trump has issued a series of controversial pardons in his second term, including those who attacked police officers at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. 

By Nicole Fuller

nicole.fuller@newsday.com@NicoleFuller

Nicole Fuller is Newsday's senior criminal justice reporter. She began working at Newsday in 2012 and previously covered local government.