More than seven years in prison was imposed on former Representative George Santos.
In the climax of one of the most outrageous political scandals in history, George Santos was sentenced to more than seven years in prison on Friday.
In a federal courthouse on Long Island, the disgraced former congressman sobbed as Judge Joanna Seybert imposed his sentence, which includes two years of supervised release. He stated, "I offer my deepest apologies," the Associated Press reported. "I have no control over the past, but I do have control over the future."
Last July, Santos, 36, entered a guilty plea to charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. The 87-month sentence that prosecutors had requested for the guy they referred to as a "pathological liar and fraudster" was approved. The deadline for his surrender is July 25.
When Santos ran for a congressional district that covered portions of Queens and Long Island in 2022 after Democrat Tom Suozzi left it up, he was not well-known. Even though a small local newspaper called the North Shore Leader discovered inconsistencies in Santos's pre-election financial filings, other inquiries concerning his background did not start to come to light until he won that fall.
What emerged was an apparently continuous flow of falsehoods: lies about Santos’s career history, his education, and even the cause of his own mother’s death. Deeper yet were the anomalies with Santos’s campaign funds and his net fortune, including reports of illegitimate contributions.
The representative allegedly deceived campaign donors by transferring their contributions to his personal accounts and using the money to pay bills and buy fashionable clothing, according to an indictment filed against him by federal authorities in 2023. Additionally, they said that even though he was employed, he applied falsely for pandemic unemployment benefits. In a later superseding indictment, Santos was accused of conspiring to falsify his campaign's financial records in order to receive support from the national party and of stealing the identities and financial data of his supporters in order to inadvertently make contributions in their names. Santos was accused with 23 charges in all, including wire fraud, money laundering, aggravated identity theft, and lying to the Federal Election Commission.
At first, Santos was obstinate, refusing to retire and promising to seek for reelection. But after a stinging ethics inquiry showed "strong evidence" of his rule-breaking, the troubled lawmaker quickly made history in 2023 by becoming just the sixth member of the House to be booted from the governing body.
