George Santos, one of the few politicians ever banished from Congress, has been sentenced to 87 months in prison for aggravated identity theft and wire fraud charges that resulted from alleged misuse of campaign donations from successful races in 2022.
On April 25, Judge Joanna Sabert of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York sentenced New York to more than seven years in prison for a former gay lawmaker, and ordered federal authorities to surrender by July 25th.
The 36-year-old Republican sobbed when the sentence was issued in a brief statement saying he had “betrayed the trust he had entrusted to me” by his political supporters and allies.
“I can’t rewrite the past, but I can control the path I came before. I did my best.” I said.
Santos’ lawyers had previously asked the court to sentence him to two years behind bars.
They argued that Santos had no prior criminal history and that such tax cuts coincided with those handed over to other politicians, including former US Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill). Associated Press.
However, prosecutors, initially sought a prison sentence of more than seven years, alleged that multiple burnt Cenic social media posts Santos made showed lack of regret over his crime despite agreeing to a plea agreement last August.
In these posts, Santos denied some of the facts that he pleaded guilty, including allegations that he used campaign contributions to purchase luxury items from Hermes, casting himself as a victim of prosecutors.
Prosecutors argued these posts that showed Santos didn’t deserve a more tolerant sentence and that he said he was “highly likely to attack again” because he had not paid or compensated the victims of his crimes.
Before the verdict, Santos defended the online social media Tyrades to Seibert, telling the judge “I’m deeply sorry” about his crime, but expressing his belief that the recommended sentence was “silly” and overly harsh.
“To challenge the harshness of a proposed sentence is not the same as fighting guilt, nor is it the same as punishing a protected speech, because punishment should plague those who value fair prosecution over personal proof,” he wrote.
Santos claimed it was a “scapegoat” of the campaign’s financial misconception, and Nancy Marks, a former campaign treasurer who pleaded guilty to forgerying campaign reports, claimed he was equally guilty in the scheme.
He also allegedly made efforts to repay the approximately $580,000 he is paying as part of a plea deal, including nearly $375,000 in compensation to those he scam and about $375,000 to those who seized $205,000, by liquidating personal assets and reducing their living expenses to reduce their costs of living.
Santos was selected in 2022 to represent Queens and parts of Long Island. He served a year before he was expelled by fellow House members.
Shortly after his election, it was revealed that he had created important details of his life story, leading to more questions about how he funded his political campaign.
The result was a House Ethics Committee investigation, followed by an outrageous report that found “substantial evidence” of potential criminal and ethical misconduct.
Apart from that, Santos has been charged with almost 20 charges, including allegations of receiving unemployment benefits intended to Americans who lost their jobs due to the Covid-19 pandemic, in which he was not eligible. There were also accusations of wire fraud, money laundering, credit card fraud, identity theft, public funds theft and false statements to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Santos initially pleaded not guilty to the charges and even took a short run as a Congressional Independent to fellow New York Republicans who had been frankly criticising Santos’ actions.
He later turned the plea into guilty before being set to go to trial.
As part of that plea deal, he granted the donor’s credit card to be charged without approval, and he admitted that the donor would deceive the donor by being misused in television ads – just to spend that money on personal expenses – his campaign to qualify to meet lending to add a joint national committee to steal the identities of around 12 people, including his own family, including his own family, to make a donation to his campaign.
Source: Metro Weekly – www.metroweekly.com
