George Santos Is Facing Years in Prison

Photo: Adam Gray/Reuters

The fun and games are nearly over for George Santos.

On Monday, the disgraced former representative pleaded guilty to charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, allowing him to avoid a trial next month. As part of his plea, Santos will be required to forfeit $205,002.97 as well as pay $373,749.97 to those he defrauded. He is set to be sentenced on February 7, 2025, and faces a minimum of two years in prison and up to a maximum 22-year sentence.

Santos’s plea marked a sudden shift, with both sides having geared up for jury selection to begin on September 9. Federal judge Joanna Seybert had ruled last week that the jurors’ identities would be concealed from the public due to the high-profile nature of the case.

A tearful Santos spoke to reporters assembled outside the Long Island courthouse, apologizing to his former constituents in New York’s 3rd Congressional District. “It has been the proudest achievement of my life to represent you, and I believe I did so to the best of my abilities,” he said. “But you also trusted me to represent you with honor and to uphold the values that are essential to our democracy and, in that regard, I failed you.”

In May 2023, Santos initially pleaded not guilty to 13 charges including wire fraud, money laundering, and making false statements. Federal prosecutors unveiled a superseding indictment in October, tacking on ten new counts including aggravated identity theft and making false statements to the Federal Election Commission. Santos would go on to plead not guilty to those counts as well.

Prosecutors alleged that Santos knowingly defrauded supporters of his congressional campaign and directed their donations to his personal bank accounts, and that he collected federal unemployment benefits while simultaneously earning a salary. The former representative was also accused of conspiring with his campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks, to submit false records inflating the campaign’s finances to qualify for an RNC fundraising program, which provided financial and logistical support to his bid. In October, Marks pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, further implicating Santos in the scheme.

After Santos won his congressional race in 2022, the New York Times revealed major inconsistencies in the life story he had told on the campaign trail, which led to further scrutiny of his background. As the falsehoods piled up, so did the calls for his resignation, with congressional Democrats and Republicans briefly on the same side of an issue. In 2023, his House colleagues voted 311–114 to expel him from Congress following a bombshell Ethics Committee report that concluded that Santos “sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit.”

His open seat was the center of a brief but buzzy special election earlier this year that saw Tom Suozzi reclaim his former congressional district and flip it back to the Democrats. Suozzi had soundly defeated Santos in 2020 but then mounted an unsuccessful run for governor in 2022 when Santos was elected.