Ousted U.S. Congressman from NY, George Santos Sentenced to 87 Months in Prison for Fraud

By FrumNews.com

Former United States Republican Congressman, George Santos, who lied about his life story and defrauded donors, was sentenced today to over seven years in prison.

The New York Republican, who served in Congress for less than a year before his House colleagues ousted him in 2023, pleaded guilty last summer to federal wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

Santos admitted to deceiving donors and stealing the identities of nearly a dozen people, including his family members, to fund his winning campaign. As part of a plea deal, he has agreed to pay roughly $580,000 in penalties in addition to 87 months of prison time.

In 2023, New York congressman George Santos was expelled from the House of Representatives, with 105 Republicans joining all but two Democrats in a vote to expel the embattled congressmen.

Santos was the sixth congressman to be expelled from congress and the first in two decades. Only five members had been expelled previously. Of those, three were expelled for fighting for the Confederacy during the Civil War.

In November 2022, Santos defeated Democrat Robert Zimmerman and was one of multiple Republicans who flipped New York seats previously held by Democrats in 2022, giving the majority to the Republicans. In December 2022, Santos acknowledged he had lied about several elements of his past, including his college degrees and work for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, among other things.

After being expelled from Congress. In front of the U.S. Capitol, Santos held a press conference, calling on the press to investigate members of Congress. He also vowed (and submitted as his last act as a congress member) filed a motion calling for the expulsion of former Rep. Jamal Bowman, D-N.Y., who pleaded guilty to falsely pulling a fire alarm this fall. Bowman lost re-election to Congressman George Latimer.

“If the House wants to start a different precedent and expel me, that is going to be the undoing of a lot of members of this body because this will haunt them in the future,” Santos warned at that time.

“I came in here as an activist and… I got to see how it is made. I get to take that story back to the American people… I’m proud of the work I put forward. If this is it, then this is it,” he added.

The expulsion vote took place after two failed attempts and a scathing report about the embattled Republican, finding evidence he broke federal laws, stole from his campaign and delivered a “constant series of lies” to voters and donors on his way to winning a US House seat.

“Representative Santos sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit,” the report concluded.