Former U.S. Congressman George Santos is scheduled to appear in court Monday afternoon. The New York Republican is expected to plead guilty to multiple charges in his federal fraud case, a source said.
The person could not publicly discuss details of the plea and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Santos and his attorneys did not respond to requests for comment.
The case is scheduled to go to trial early next month. The Monday afternoon hearing on Long Island was not scheduled until Friday at the request of both prosecutors and Santos’ attorneys. A letter making the request did not specify what it would be about.
Santos has previously pleaded not guilty to a series of alleged financial crimes, including lying to Congress about his assets, collecting unemployment benefits while working and using campaign contributions to pay for personal expenses.
The 36-year-old was once seen as a rising political star after winning the suburban area encompassing Long Island’s affluent North Shore and part of the New York City borough of Queens in 2022.
But his life story began to unravel before he was even sworn in. At the time, reports emerged that he had lied about a career at top Wall Street firms and a college degree, among other questions about his biography.
New questions arose about his campaign funds.
He was first indicted on federal charges in May 2023, but refused to step down. Santos was expelled from Congress after an ethics investigation found “overwhelming evidence” that he had broken the law and exploited his public position for personal gain.
Santos has previously maintained his innocence, though he said in a December interview that a plea deal with prosecutors was “not out of the question.”
When asked if he was afraid of going to prison, he told CBS 2 at the time, “I think everybody should be afraid of going to prison, it’s not a nice place to be and uh, I definitely want to work very hard to avoid that as much as I can.”
As the trial date approached in recent weeks, Santos had sought a partially anonymous jury. His attorneys argued in court papers that “the mere risk of public ridicule could affect the ability of individual jurors to judge Santos’ case solely on the facts and law as presented in court.”
He also wanted potential jurors to fill out a written questionnaire to gauge their opinions of him. His lawyers argued that the survey was necessary because “Santos has already been found guilty in the court of public opinion.”
Judge Joanna Seybert agreed to release the identities of the jurors but declined to complete the questionnaire.
Meanwhile, prosecutors sought to admit into evidence some of the financial lies Santos told during his campaign, including that he had worked at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs and that he had run a family business with about $80 million in assets,
Two of Santos’ campaign workers have already pleaded guilty to crimes related to the former congressman’s campaign.
His former treasurer, Nancy Marks, pleaded guilty in October to a fraud conspiracy charge, implicating Santos in an alleged scheme to embellish his campaign finance reports with a phony loan and donors. A lawyer for Marks said at the time that his client would be prepared to testify against Santos if asked.
Sam Miele, a former fundraiser for Santos, pleaded guilty a month later to a federal charge of wire fraud, admitting that he had posed as a high-ranking congressional staffer while raising money for Santos’ campaign.
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Associated Press Editor Michael R. Sisak contributed to this report.
