The disgraced former Republican House member George Santos, who was expelled from Congress in late 2023, was just sentenced to over seven years in prison and a restitution of $373k for his crimes, after he spent campaign money on a lavish lifestyle and making unauthorized donations to his campaign from elderly people who had mental conditions.
Here’s more from NBC News:
A federal judge in New York sentenced former Rep. George Santos to over seven years in prison Friday.
U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert also ordered him to pay over $373,000 in restitution.
Prosecutors had urged Seybert to throw the book at Santos, the disgraced former Republican congressman, to “reflect the seriousness of Santos’s unparalleled crimes.”
“From his creation of a wholly fictitious biography to his callous theft of money from elderly and impaired donors, Santos’s unrestrained greed and voracious appetite for fame enabled him to exploit the very system by which we select our representatives,” prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum, in which they asked Seybert to sentence him to 87 months in prison.
That’s the sentence the judge handed down.
Prosecutors said that despite his pleading guilty to a pair of felony fraud charges in August — and a teary expression of remorse to news cameras after the proceeding — Santos is “a pathological liar” who isn’t actually remorseful about his actions.
Prosecutors noted he’d recently launched a weekly podcast called “Pants on Fire with George Santos,” which they called “a perfect crystallization of his lack of genuine contrition and his tone-deaf efforts to continue turning lies into dollars.”
Santos’ attorneys had urged Seybert to sentence him to the minimum of two years. “His conduct, though involving dishonesty and abuse of trust, stemmed largely from a misguided desperation related to his political campaign, rather than inherent malice,” his attorneys contended in a court filing, noting that he had no criminal history.
“Moreover, the public nature of this case and Mr. Santos’s fall from a position of public trust serve as a stark warning to others who might contemplate similar offenses,” their filing said.
Asked this month on his podcast whether he planned to ask President Donald Trump for a pardon, Santos said, “You bet your sweet a– I would.”
In an interview with NY1 this week, Santos said he hadn’t reached out to Trump, but he added that he believes “the president is aware of my situation.”
“If he feels like I’m worthy of a commutation or of clemency or whatever the case is, he can make that decision,” he said.
Prosecutors said he committed identity theft and swindled donors to enrich himself and live a luxurious lifestyle. Among those whose credit card information he used to make unauthorized donations were three “elderly persons suffering from some degree of cognitive impairment or decline,” prosecutors said.
He was also later hit with a scathing House Ethics Committee report that found he spent campaign funds on rent, luxury designer goods, personal trips to Las Vegas and the Hamptons, cosmetic treatments and a subscription to the adult content site OnlyFans.
The House voted to expel him in December 2023.
Good riddance. And I hope that President Trump doesn’t even remotely consider letting Santos off the hook for his crimes in any way. If he ever gets early release or a reduced sentence, it should be because he earned it and not because it was given to him by pardon or commutation.