It seems that the summer of 2020 was a very good time for George Santos. He was paid a six-figure salary from a Florida-based investment firm and had won the support of the Republican Party when he first ran for a Long Island House seat.
But in June, Mr. Santos presented New York State with a very different story. According to federal prosecutors, he falsely claimed he was unemployed to unleash a stream of pandemic-era unemployment benefits that eventually totaled $24,000.
Throughout his public life, Mr. Santos has been a man shrouded in myth. He pitched himself as a self-made American success story, with daring lies about college degrees, fast cars and enormous wealth. And as that personality unraveled, fellow politicians and the media fixated on the idea that he was a criminal mastermind who evaded detection.
The searing 13-count indictment unveiled Wednesday by federal prosecutors for the Eastern District of New York cut through all of that. It confirmed a story closer to ‘The Great Gatsby’, ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’ or other mainstays of a popular crook sub-genre seem to be winding through American life like a corrupted seam.
According to the prosecutors, George Santos, Defendant, is just another con artist with a penchant for fame and designer goods, willing to lie and scam rich people to get what he wants. That the podium happens to be political seems incidental: as a two-time congressional candidate, he benefited from donors, state officials, and even the House of Representatives.
“It feels like a peculiarly American story,” said Amy Reading, a historian of American cons, before referring to Mr. Santos’ work for a Florida company cited by the SEC for misconduct. “Here’s someone who worked for a real Ponzi scheme, while falsely claiming unemployment benefits during a global pandemic, and then fell in Congress.”
Former Senator Alfonse D’Amato, a Long Island Republican whose name appears on the courthouse where Mr. Santos was arraigned, was more blunt.
“He’s a two-bit thief,” he said. ‘He’s dead in the water. They got him well.”
Mr. Santos has already begun to fight that narrative. While he has admitted some lies, in a packed Long Island courthouse he pleaded not guilty to all 13 charges, including money laundering, bank fraud, false statements and stealing government funds. He then walked out to reaffirm his intention to seek re-election.
“The reality is this is a witch hunt,” said 34-year-old Santos, referring to another old American motif. “For me, this is the beginning of the ability to speak up and defend myself.”
The indictment sparked another round of calls by mainstream Republicans for Santos to resign or even be removed from Congress, but it remains far from clear whether the political system will demand a price.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California, who cannot afford to lose a single vote from his thin Republican majority, has already said he has no intention of trying to push Mr. the trial is condemned. That stance fits with House precedent in recent cases involving Republicans like Nebraska’s Jeff Fortenberry and New York’s Chris Collins, but it could take years to play out.
Democrats have the ability to force a vote to evict Mr. Santos from the House, but they need dozens of Republicans to defy and join Mr. McCarthy in order to pass the required vote threshold. For now, they have turned their attention to pressuring Mr. McCarthy to act himself.
“This is not someone who was given a get-rich-quick opportunity and couldn’t resist the temptation,” said Rep. Daniel S. Goldman, a Democrat and former federal prosecutor from Manhattan. “This is someone who is a premeditated serial liar whose entire existence is a lie and deceit.”
The voters could be the first to pass judgment on Mr. Santos. Republican leaders in New York and Nassau County, who supported him just two years ago, plan to support a primary challenger next year. They have a history of lining up money and volunteers to push their candidates through.
“He’s gone, however you do it, because we’re having a good party in Nassau County,” New York Republican Party chairman Edward F. Cox said.
But Mr. Cox, the son-in-law of former President Richard M. Nixon, also added a touch of frustration. “He will make a fortune from the attention given to him,” he said.
Mr. Cox was not the only critic of Mr. Santos made uncomfortable by the charges. By shedding light on his misconduct, prosecutors indirectly exposed the many ways that political, financial and media institutions failed to root out people like him. There was not even any indication that federal prosecutors were investigating Mr. Santos before The New York Times and other news outlets began documenting his widespread lies and unusual financial dealings in December.
Since then, the news media has amassed a remarkable catalog of lies from Mr. Santos.
There’s the fake resume, fabricated because of the rapid growth he helped achieve at a major bank he never worked for and the 3.89 GPA he earned at a college he never attended. He claimed – falsely – that some of the people killed in the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, were his employees. He told Nassau County Republican leaders that he was on a championship volleyball team at Baruch, the college he did not attend. He lied about houses he said he built and sports cars he said he owned.
And then there were reports that he was raising money to pay for life-saving surgery for a veteran’s dog, only to keep the money, and that he was participating in an illegal skimming scheme.
There were hints in the 20-page indictment that prosecutors may still be digging through the tangled web of Mr. Santos’ financial life. It included work for the Florida investment company accused of running a Ponzi scheme; campaign finance reports full of irregularities; and attempts to broker the sale of luxury goods between wealthy businessmen he met during his political campaign.
The indictment also included new details about three different schemes prosecutors said Mr Santos has undertaken in recent years.
They charged him with two counts of making false statements on personal financial disclosure reports he submitted to the House, by misrepresenting the source of his income and then by exaggerating it.
The unemployment benefits scheme resulted in two counts of wire fraud and one count of stealing government funds.
The most complicated scheme laid out in the indictment involved Mr. Santos, a bogus super PAC, and a few wealthy Republican donors.
According to prosecutors, Mr. Santos and a political agent who worked for him began urging donors to make large donations from September 2022. In email and text messages, they falsely told backers that the company was a super-PAC working “exclusively” to elect Mr. Santos by buying TV ads.
In fact, it was a limited liability company, and after the two donors each transferred $25,000 just days before the election, Mr. Santos pocketed the money himself. Prosecutors said he used it to buy designer clothes and pay off debts. None of the money went to the campaign.
Mr. Santos’ next trial is scheduled for June 30, but his attention to another legal matter beckoned earlier. On Thursday, the congressman reached a plea agreement with Brazilian authorities to accept responsibility and pay damages in a 2008 case involving a stolen checkbook Mr. Santos used to purchase goods, including a pair of shoes.