New York Rep George Santos was indicted on more charges on Tuesday, including stealing the identities and credit cards of his campaign donors.
Santos, a Republican lawmaker representing parts of Long Island and Queens, was previously charged with defrauding political donors, misuse of COVID-19 relief funds, and lying to Congress.
Santos pleaded not guilty to the charges in June, and has insisted he is the victim of a ‘witch hunt.’
The new 23-count indictment filed on Tuesday supersedes the one filed in May, charging Santos with a much larger fraud scheme, including making payments on his donors’ credit cards.
‘Santos is charged with stealing people’s identities and making charges on his own donors’ credit cards without their authorization, lying to the FEC and, by extension, the public about the financial state of his campaign,’ US Attorney Breon Peace said.
He also allegedly ‘falsely inflated the campaign’s reported receipts with non-existent loans and contributions that were either fabricated or stolen.’
According to the indictment, Santos collected credit card information from his campaign donors in order to process donations.
Santos allegedly used the credit cards to then transfer money to his campaign, to other campaigns, to his own personal bank account.
‘To conceal the true source of these funds and to circumvent campaign contribution limits, Santos falsely represented that some of the campaign contributions were made by other persons, such as his relatives or associates, rather than the true cardholders,’ the Justice Department said.
In one case, a campaign donor provided him the information for two credit cards to make donations in 2021.
Santos then used those cards to pay out his campaign and a political action committee a total of $44,800 without their authorization.
In order to circumvent campaign contribution limits, Santos reported the donations came from himself and ‘one of his relatives.’
On another occasion, Santos used a donor’s credit card to send $12,000 to his own bank account.
The new indictment also accuses Santos of orchestrating a scheme with his former campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks, to mislead the Federal Election Commission (FEC) about his finances.
In order to determine if a campaign is financially viable, the FEC requires candidates to show that they raised at least $250,000 from third-party donors in one quarter.
The national Republican Party also uses the FEC’s fundraising data in order to qualify candidates to receive party funds.
In order to make it appear that Santos’s campaign had enough donors, he and Marks reported donations from at least 10 of their family members without their knowledge.
Santos also reported he had loaned his own campaign $500,000. However, at the time he only had $8,000 in his bank account.
Marks pleaded guilty to charges related to the scheme on October 5.
Santos has not yet commented on the new charges. He has previously denied the allegations against him and resisted calls to resign, including some from his own party.
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