George Santos pleads not guilty to fraud and money laundering

The Republican congressman George Santos, exposed for lying extensively about his background and campaign finance disclosures, on Wednesday pleaded not guilty in federal court in New York to multiple charges of fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and making false statements.

Santos denies all 13 counts and was released on a $500,000 bond, though US magistrate judge Arlene Lindsay forced Santos to surrender his passport and ordered him to give notice for any travel outside Long Island, New York City and Washington, DC, where he was expected to return almost immediately.

The freshman congressman emerged from the federal courthouse in Central Islip, Long Island, shortly after his arraignment and used distinctly Donald Trump-like rhetoric to attack the criminal case as a conspiracy to damage him politically.

“It’s a witch-hunt,” Santos said. “I’m going to fight my battle, I’m going to fight the witch-hunt, I’m going to take care of clearing my name.”

Santos’s next court appearance is scheduled for 30 June. He departed the courthouse several hours after he surrendered to authorities, having slipped in through a back door and avoiding a throng of reporters and cameras at the main entrance.

Santos was probably treated the same as any other criminal defendant, former prosecutors said: being fingerprinted, getting his mugshot taken and sitting for a preliminary interview.

The indictment, which was unsealed earlier on Wednesday morning, contained seven counts of wire fraud, three of money laundering, one of theft of public money and two of making materially false statements in financial reports to the House of Representatives.

Santos faces a maximum sentence of 20 years on the top count, the US attorney’s office for the eastern district of New York said. He will not have to relinquish his seat, though according to House rules, members sentenced to at least two years cannot vote or be on committees.

“The allegations in the indictment charge Santos with relying on repeated dishonesty and deception to ascend to the halls of Congress and enrich himself,” the US attorney Breon Peace said.

The indictment outlined three alleged fraudulent schemes, the most substantial of which involved a political fundraising effort where Santos and an unnamed Queens-based consultant induced donors to give money used to pay for luxury goods and personal debts, according to the charging papers.

The second alleged scheme involved unemployment benefits fraud during the Covid pandemic, when Santos received around $20,000 in government assistance even though he was employed and receiving a $120,000 salary from an investment firm registered in Florida.

The third alleged scheme involved Santos misleading the House about his financial situation, overstating a source of income without disclosing his salary in May 2020, during his first, unsuccessful run for Congress, then making false statements in September 2022 during his victorious run.

The false information prosecutors say Santos included in his second financial disclosure saw significant amounts of money at stake in bizarre circumstances.

Prosecutors alleged Santos falsely certified a $750,000 salary and between $1m and $5m in dividends from his company, the Devolder Organization, and claimed to have $100,000 to $250,000 in a checking account and between $1m and $5m in savings.

Santos was informed about the charges on Tuesday, before they were widely reported. Santos’s congressional staff in Washington were told they should work from home for an unspecified period and to not come into the office, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

Santos was elected after a campaign built partly on falsehoods, including that he was a wealthy Wall Street dealmaker with a real estate portfolio, having been a star volleyball player in college. In reality, he did not work at the firms he claimed, did not go to college and struggled financially.

But Santos has so far managed to evade serious political repercussions for his extensive dishonesty to voters and the government, largely due to the fact that Republicans hold a razor-thin House majority and Santos was a key vote for Kevin McCarthy as he won the speakership.

His most pressing issue until the indictment was an investigation by the House ethics committee, which rarely disciplines members, and McCarthy telling reporters that he would ask Santos to resign if found guilty of the federal charges.

Santos has emphatically denied any wrongdoing and has defiantly refused to resign, even as he has faced increased pressure to step down from Republicans and Democrats alike - a rare instance of cross-aisle unity in an otherwise hyper-partisan Congress.

The Republican Marc Molinaro told reporters: “George Santos should have resigned in December. George Santos should have resigned in January. George Santos should have resigned yesterday. Perhaps he’ll resign today. But sooner or later … both the truth and justice will be delivered to him.”

Ritchie Torres, a New York Democrat, called him “a pathological liar and lawbreaker who lied to the voters of New York state and defrauded his way into the United States Congress”, adding: “Santos is a deep rot of corruption at the core of Congress.”

Irregularities in Santos’s filings, widely reported by news outlets, were apparent on their face: 1,200 payments of $199.99 – one cent below the threshold at which receipts are required – an unregistered fund that raised vast sums, and around $40,000 for air travel.

Santos claimed he loaned his campaign and political action committees more than $750,000, but it was unclear how he would have come into that kind of wealth after struggling to pay rent and facing eviction.

Santos described the Devolder Organization as a broker for luxury items. The business was incorporated in Florida shortly after Santos stopped working as a salesman for a company separately accused by federal prosecutors of operating an illegal Ponzi scheme.

He has faced criminal investigations before, including a case involving fraudulent checks and an ongoing inquiry into charity work for abused pets. When he was 19, he wasinvestigated in Brazil over allegations he used stolen checks at a clothing shop. This year, Brazilian authorities reopened the case.

• George Santos

• New York
• news