George Santos, the beleaguered Republican congressman charged with fraud, will spend his summer vacation reviewing thousands of pages of evidence against him, his lawyer told a federal judge.
Santos, who is fighting the criminal case and an effort to expel him from the U.S. House of Representatives, appeared on Friday for the first time before U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert in Central Islip, New York. He has pleaded not guilty to a 13-count indictment alleging he engaged in a scheme to tap campaign contributions for his personal expenses, among other crimes.
Prosecutor Ryan Harris told the judge the government had turned over more than 80,000 pages of evidence this week. Santos’s lawyer, Joseph Murray, said he and his client would probably use the lawmaker’s congressional recess to review the documents.
Santos was dressed for his appearance, which lasted about five minutes, in a gray jacket, white dress shirt and coral tie. He is free on a $500,000 bond. Seybert, a Bill Clinton appointee, set the next hearing for Sept. 7.
After court, Santos was confronted by protesters including Richard Osthoff, a military veteran who says Santos exploited his service dog Sapphire’s cancer to raise money on GoFundMe and then kept most of it for himself. Santos denies it.
“You killed my dog, George!” Osthoff yelled as the lawmaker left.
Santos, 34, was charged last month with engaging in the campaign donations scheme, fraudulently receiving more than $24,000 in pandemic unemployment benefits and lying in disclosures to the House. He faces as many as 20 years in prison if convicted of the most serious charges of wire fraud and money laundering, the government says, although under federal sentencing guidelines his term would probably be shorter.
The case comes at a precarious time for House Republicans, whose narrow edge in the chamber means that to pass most bills they can’t have more than a handful of defections. The House Ethics Committee said in a statement this month that its investigative panel was “actively working to resolve this matter in an expeditious timeframe and has issued over 30 subpoenas and more than 40 voluntary requests for information.”
The committee said it had expanded its investigation to include the unemployment insurance allegations and that it was coordinating with the Justice Department to “mitigate the potential risks” of a dual probe.
Santos’s improbable rags-to-riches story rang alarm bells that led to the discovery of numerous falsehoods he purveyed, including that he had worked at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and graduated from Baruch College after playing on its championship volleyball team. The congressman has said he may have embellished his resume but never broke the law.
He was elected to Congress in November and sworn into office as the representative for New York’s 3rd Congressional District in January. His district, which includes part of Queens and much of Nassau County, leans Democratic. If he is expelled or resigns, Republicans’ majority in the House would decrease to nine votes and result in a special election to fill the seat through 2025.
(Gregory Korte contributed to this report.)
