Rep. George Santos (R-NY) was hit with additional charges in a 23-count superseding indictment unsealed on Tuesday that included allegations that he stole donor’s identities and used their credit cards to make unauthorized purchases.
The new charges included one count of conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, two counts of wire fraud, two counts of making materially false statements to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), two counts of falsifying records submitted to obstruct the FEC, two counts of aggravated identity theft, and one count of access device fraud.
He was charged earlier this year with seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds, and two counts of making materially false statements to the United States House of Representatives.
The new charges come after Nancy Marks, the former campaign treasurer for Santos, pled guilty last week to multiple federal charges stemming from her role in falsely reporting that Santos made a $500,000 loan to his campaign to make it appear as though he had more support than he really had. Santos has less than $8,000 in his bank account.
Marks pled guilty to committing wire fraud, making materially false statements, obstructing the administration of the Federal Election Commission, and committing aggravated identity theft, federal prosecutors said in a statement.
During last year’s midterm elections, “Santos and Marks conspired with one another to devise and execute a fraudulent scheme to obtain money for the campaign by submitting materially false reports to the FEC on behalf of the campaign, in which they inflated the campaign’s fundraising numbers for the purpose of misleading the FEC, a national party committee, and the public,” the Department of Justice said in a statement.
The alleged purpose of the scheme was to deceive the Republican National Committee (RNC) into believing that Santos had more support than he really did for the sake of achieving financial backing from the party.
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The DOJ continued:
In addition, between approximately December 2021 and August 2022, Santos devised and executed a fraudulent scheme to steal the personal identity and financial information of contributors to his campaign. He then charged contributors’ credit cards repeatedly, without their authorization. Because of these unauthorized transactions, funds were transferred to Santos’s campaign, to the campaigns of other candidates for elected office, and to his own bank account. To conceal the true source of these funds and to circumvent campaign contribution limits, Santos falsely represented that some of the campaign contributions were made by other persons, such as his relatives or associates, rather than the true cardholders. Santos did not have authorization to use their names in this way.
Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Nicole M. Argentieri, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, and James Smith, Assistant Director-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI), and Anne T. Donnelly, Nassau County District Attorney, announced the superseding indictment.
“As alleged, Santos is charged with stealing people’s identities and making charges on his own donors’ credit cards without their authorization, lying to the FEC and, by extension, the public about the financial state of his campaign,” said United States Attorney Breon Peace. “Santos falsely inflated the campaign’s reported receipts with non-existent loans and contributions that were either fabricated or stolen.”