A federal judge has ordered former Rep. George Santos (R-NY) to surrender roughly $200,000 in ill-gotten money from his wire fraud scheme, CBS News' Scott MacFarlane reported Friday.
The order follows Santos' guilty plea to federal charges against him, which he is set to face sentencing for in February.
Santos, who was elected to Congress in a traditionally Democratic-favoring Long Island district in 2022, was almost immediately brought down by scandal as it was revealed he fabricated much of his campaign resume, including where he worked and his claims to a Jewish heritage.
He subsequently became embroiled in a federal criminal investigation, which alleged that he defrauded donors and municipal government. He was indicted on fraud charges and later hit with a superseding indictment alleging that he stole his donors' identities and made purchases using their credit card information.
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Santos was expelled from the House in an overwhelming bipartisan vote of Congress last year. The seat was then reclaimed by Democrats in a special election after former Rep. Tom Suozzi, who declined to seek re-election in 2022 as part of an ill-fated bid to run for governor of New York, ran for the seat once again.
More recently, Santos grabbed headlines for publicly defending fellow disgraced former lawmaker Matt Gaetz, who resigned from Congress to seek the nomination for Trump's attorney general, only to withdraw amid a fight over an ethics report that detailed evidence he engaged in underage sex trafficking, illicit drug use, and obstruction.
"Is Matt Gaetz a choir boy? NO! Is he a bad person? NO!" Santos wrote earlier this week. "Is the 'ethics' report bias and mental to smear him? YES! I want to call for a special counsel to start an investigation on all 435 members of the house of the 119th Congress and watch it all come down in flames! Cheats, insider traders, DUI’s, DWI’s, prostitution, and, illegals drugs consumption are all some of the commonalities across the board in BOTH parties in the US House of Representatives."
