(Reuters) – Former U.S. Representative George Santos, who was expelled from Congress after a brief and scandal-plagued tenure, was sentenced by a federal judge on Friday to more than seven years in prison for fraud and identity theft.
Santos pleaded guilty last August to two of the 23 criminal counts he faced for inflating fundraising numbers and faking donor names to qualify for financial support from the Republican Party during the 2022 election cycle, when the political newcomer was elected to represent a slice of New York City and its eastern suburbs.
On Friday, Eastern District of New York Judge Joanna Seybert sentenced the 36-year-old to 87 months in a federal prison and ordered him to surrender by July 25, the New York Times reported.
“Mr. Santos, words have consequences,” the judge told Santos. “You got elected with your words, most of which were lies.”
In April, prosecutors recommended an 87-month sentence, saying the top end of Santos’ guideline sentence range was appropriate to reflect the seriousness of his unparalleled crimes.
During his campaign, Santos claimed that he attended New York University, that he had worked at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, and that his grandparents had fled the Nazis during World War Two. None of those claims were true.
Santos was hit with federal charges in May 2023 for laundering campaign funds to pay for his personal expenses, charging donors’ credit cards without their consent, and receiving unemployment benefits while he was employed.
As part of his plea deal, Santos admitted to all of the wrongdoing described in the indictment, even though he only pleaded guilty to two of the 23 counts in August.
Santos spent much of his 11 months in office engulfed in scandal, marginalized by his fellow lawmakers and mocked by late-night TV comedians following revelations that he had lied about much of his past.
A bipartisan investigation by the House Ethics Committee found he spent campaign money on Botox, luxury brands such as Hermes, and OnlyFans, an online platform known for sexual content. He was expelled from the House of Representatives in December.
(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; editing by Diane Craft)
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