Rep. George Santos' reelection campaign deep in debt, new filing shows

WASHINGTON — Indicted Rep. George Santos’ reelection campaign reported Sunday that it is deep in debt, with less than $23,000 in the bank and more than $123,000 in unpaid bills.

And that does not count $630,000 in unrepaid loans that Santos says he made for his 2022 race — loans that have drawn the scrutiny of prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of New York.

From July to September, Santos’s campaign reported it had raised $674 in un-itemized contributions and refunded $17,200 to 14 contributors while spending $42,000 on operating expenditures, according to the filing with the Federal Election Commission.

That left a deep red bottom line for total contributions of -$16,526.

During the last quarter, Santos’ new campaign treasurer, Jason Boles of Atlanta, also reported to the FEC that he had found seven new unpaid bills from Santos’ 2022 campaign for office — expenses not recorded by Santos’ former treasurer, Nancy Marks of Shirley.

Among them was an unpaid legal bill to the Dickinson Wright law firm worth nearly $89,000, of which the Santos campaign paid $20,000.

The campaign also ran up a bill of $10,000 for election night catering that is still unpaid at Santos’ favorite restaurant, Il Bacco in Queens.

And the campaign paid $3,500 of the $7,500 owed to his communications director, Gabrielle Lipsky, for her work last year. The campaign also owes about $13,200 to three firms for mail fundraising programs, the filing said.

Lipsky and Santos’ spokesperson did not immediately respond to a Newsday request for comment.

New questions surround the accuracy of Santos’ campaign finance filings after federal prosecutors this month filed a superseding indictment adding 10 new charges against Santos and accepted Marks' guilty plea in federal court admitting that she filed false reports with the FEC.

The superseding indictment alleges Santos stole people's identities and made charges on his donors' credit cards without authorization, lied to the FEC and inflated reported campaign receipts with nonexistent loans and fabricated or stolen donations.

Those additional charges came after Marks told a judge she worked with Santos to artificially inflate the amount of funds he raised to meet the $250,000 financial benchmark necessary to receive financial assistance from the national Republican committee.

Santos was arrested in May on charges that he orchestrated a series of schemes while running for Congress, including ripping off political donors, fraudulently receiving unemployment benefits authorized under COVID-19 and lying on his congressional financial disclosure forms.

Santos denies the charges against him and vows to fight them in court.