Rep. George Santos' campaign finance report shows loss of $3G in net contributions in past three months

WASHINGTON — In his first campaign finance report since being exposed for fabrications and targeted for investigations, Rep. George Santos reported Saturday that his net contributions for the past three months equal a loss of $3,019.52.

Santos, a Republican who represents the 3rd Congressional District in Nassau and Queens counties, reported to the Federal Election Commission that he raised a total of $5,333.26 in the first quarter but also refunded four contributors a total of $8,352.78.

“That is the most pathetic FEC report I’ve ever seen for an incumbent Member of Congress in thirty-four years of practicing campaign finance law,” said Brett Kappel, an attorney at Harmon Curran, a Washington, D.C., law firm.

Santos' congressional spokeswoman Naysa Woomer said in an email Saturday night that his congressional office does not comment on campaign-related matters.

The money-losing campaign report also says that Santos’ campaign finance committee had $25,096 in cash on hand and debts for loans Santos made to his campaign totaling $715,000.

But that loan figure fell $40,000 short of the $755,000 in unpaid loans that he reported in his year-end 2022 filing to the FEC in January. The FEC likely will send Santos questions about that loan discrepancy, Kappel said.

The filing Saturday identified one person making a contribution — a New York City resident named Sacha Basin who donated $254.95 through the WinRed Republican campaign donation conduit on Jan. 24.

And the campaign refunded $2,900 each to two of Santos’ bigger donors in his successful 2022 campaign in which he defeated his Democratic opponent.

One of those refunds went to Robert Mangi, a Lloyd Harbor resident and operator of a wholesale insurance brokerage in Garden City. Mangi and his wife, Sandra, contributed a total of $197,400 to Santos-tied committees, state and federal records show.

"More than the personal humiliation of finding the person you thought was a 'Next Gen' political standard-bearer is, in fact, a fraud is the realization that these stunning revelations come with significant collateral damage," Mangi said in a statement to Newsday.

The other $2,900 refund went to Mayra Ruiz, a Republican donor in Miami who sold a $19 million, 141-foot superyacht to Raymond Tantillo, a Long Island auto dealer, in a deal brokered by Santos. Tantillo gave more than $17,000 to Santos' campaign and affiliated committees.

In addition, the campaign refunded Cindy Gross, of Woodmere, the $500 contribution she gave a week before the publication of The New York Times expose of Santos, and the $500 that Thomas Zmich, of Bayside and a former unsuccessful candidate for Congress in Queens, gave a day after the expose appeared.

The House Ethics Committee, the federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of New York and the New York attorney general have opened investigations into the campaign and other activities of Santos.