{"id":41510,"date":"2025-04-26T03:36:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-26T08:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=41510"},"modified":"2025-04-26T04:28:58","modified_gmt":"2025-04-26T09:28:58","slug":"george-santos-sentenced-to-over-7-years-in-federal-fraud-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=41510","title":{"rendered":"George Santos sentenced to over 7 years in federal fraud case"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Disgraced former U.S. Rep. George Santos was sentenced to more than seven years in federal prison — the maximum he faced — on Friday after pleading guilty<\/a> to a series of fraudulent schemes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert sentenced him to 87 months in prison, followed by two years of supervised release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A tearful Santos told the judge he regrets defrauding the voters who supported his 2022 run for Congress before she handed down the sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“My conduct betrayed my supporters and the institutions I swore to uphold,” he said during his sentencing hearing in a New York federal court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He began to cry and struggled to get out the words as he tried to express remorse for the crimes he committed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I undermined the faith in the very institutions I swore to uphold,” he said. “I cannot rewrite the past but I can control the road ahead.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He urged Seybert to impose a lenient sentence, arguing he can positively contribute to the community he “robbed.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Santos, 36, was convicted of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. He faced a sentence of 75 to 87 months imprisonment, including a mandatory minimum two-year sentence for aggravated identity theft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Santos did not take any questions from reporters as he arrived at federal court in Central Islip for the Friday morning sentencing hearing.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

His attorney, Andrew Mancilla, described his client\u2019s conduct bluntly, arguing the former congressman is \u201cforever stained\u201d by his actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEveryone hates George Santos,\u201d Mancilla told the court ahead of the sentencing, claiming his client is not the \u201ccaricature drawn by the media.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe is a 36-year-old gay man with no criminal record who came from a broken family,\u201d Mancilla said. \u201cHe built this ego of a man he wanted to be, not who he was.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But prosecutors argued Santos has shown little remorse for his crimes, has blamed the Department of Justice and committed an \u201cunprecedented\u201d series of crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe has committed crime after crime after crime,\u201d Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan Harris said. \u201cHe has repeatedly proven he is unable to tell the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris rebuked Santos for suggesting the prosecution was politically motivated and argued the former congressman has demonstrated a \u201cgenuine lack of contrition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis case is not the product of so-called lawfare. It is the result of years and years of deceit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seybert agreed, calling out Santos for his repeated lies and lack of remorse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s incredible that he did not stop with the lies,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s incredible now that he tries to blame the government.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before imposing her sentence, Seybert noted she has \u201csympathy\u201d for Santos, believes he is a talented man and hopes he will eventually contribute to society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMr. Santos, words have consequences,\u201d she said, noting the same words that won him a seat in Congress landed him in court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou have a future, and I am sad to say in one sense that it is going to be shortened by the sentence I am about to impose,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the sentence was read, Santos covered his face with his hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was not immediately remanded and will report to prison at a future date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a court filing ahead of Friday’s sentencing hearing on Long Island, federal prosecutors requested the maximum possible sentence — amounting to seven years and three months — calling his conduct a “brazen web of deceit” that defrauded donors and misled voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They also argued the former New York congressman’s recent “social media blitz” shows he “remains unrepentant for his crimes” in a subsequent filing. In one example, prosecutors pointed to an April 4 post on Santos’ X account that stated, “No matter how hard the DOJ comes for me, they are mad because they will NEVER break my spirit.” The post was made the same day the DOJ filed its initial sentencing recommendation.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Santos, meanwhile, insisted in a letter<\/a> to Seybert this week that he has “accepted full responsibility” for his crimes. He said he can be both “profoundly sorry” and upset by the Justice Department’s recommendation of a lengthy prison sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“But saying I’m sorry doesn’t require me to sit quietly while these prosecutors try to drop an anvil on my head. True remorse isn’t mute; it is aware of itself, and it speaks up when the penalty scale jumps into the absurd,” Santos’ letter said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Santos included a selective chart to suggest the government’s sentencing recommendation is out of step with other political prosecutions, citing former Illinois Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. being sentenced<\/a> to 30 months for misusing $750,000 in campaign funds or ex-New York Rep. Michael Grimm being sentenced<\/a> to eight months for concealing $900,000 in wages and taxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Santos had asked for a two-year prison sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prosecutors alleged Santos, with the help of his former campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks, falsified Federal Election Commission filings, fabricating donor contributions and inflating fundraising totals to meet the $250,000 threshold required to join the National Republican Congressional Committee’s coveted “Young Guns” program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marks\u00a0pleaded guilty<\/a>\u00a0to a federal conspiracy charge in 2023 and is awaiting sentencing in May.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Santos pleaded guilty in August 2024. The Republican was expelled from Congress<\/a> in December 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of his plea deal, he agreed to pay nearly $600,000 in restitution and forfeiture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The judge agreed to delay<\/a> Santos’ sentencing, which had initially been scheduled for Feb. 7, after Santos asked for more time to make money off of his podcast to satisfy his restitution and forfeiture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Members of the Concerned Citizens of NY-03, an organization formed in 2023 by voters from across the region Santos once represented in response to his actions, spoke out following the hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“My reaction in sitting in the courtroom was, ‘Cry me a river,’ when he got that sentence,” Jody Kass Finkel, the head of Concerned Citizens of NY-03, said outside the courthouse. “He has betrayed the public trust.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

abcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Disgraced former U.S. Rep. George Santos was sentenced to more than seven years in federal prison — the maximum he faced — on Friday after pleading guilty to a series of fraudulent schemes. U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert sentenced him to 87 months in prison, followed by two years of supervised release. A tearful Santos told the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":41511,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[1320,1692,1527],"class_list":["post-41510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-george","tag-sentenced","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41510"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41512,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41510\/revisions\/41512"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}