U.S. Rep. Santos speaks to reporters as he leaves the federal courthouse in Central Islip, N.Y., Wednesday, May 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
The co-signers of the bond keeping Rep. George Santos out of pretrial confinement have two days to withdraw from financially supporting the New York Republican before a federal judge pulls them into the public eye.
So reads the intriguing summary of a ruling by U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert, who is presiding over a federal criminal case accusing Santos of fraud, money laundering, and theft of public funds.
Santos has been fighting an order that would identify the suretors helping post his $500,000 bond on those charges. After U.S. Magistrate Judge Anne Y. Shields issued the initial order, Santos sounded the alarm, suggesting that the ruling could put people close to him in danger.
The beleaguered representative has suggested that he would prefer to go to jail rather than drag them into the sunlight, claiming that they are “family members” and their safety is at risk.
“Here in the instant case, the suretors are likely to suffer great distress, may lose their jobs, and God forbid, may suffer physical injury,” the congressman’s attorney Joseph W. Murray claimed in a letter to the court dated June 5.
Murray added that his client would “rather surrender to pretrial detainment than subject these suretors to what will inevitably come.”
Santos and his bond co-signers must face that stark choice imminently.
After affirming the order to unseal, Judge Seybert let the status quo resume over the sealing of the documents until Thursday, June 22 at noon Eastern Time.
Until then, the judge added, Santos “may move to modify the conditions of his release, should the suretors seek to withdraw from serving as suretors.”
The representative’s attorney didn’t immediately respond to an email requesting comment.
Legal experts have questioned whether Santos was bluffing about his willingness to face incarceration rather than transparency over his bond, and his latest assertion follows a long line of statements by Santos exposed as fabrications or lies.
After his election, the New York Times exposed how Santos ascended to his office through exaggerations and falsehoods about his education, career, and heritage. Santos claimed he graduated from Baruch College, became a “seasoned Wall Street financier and investor” at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, and had a registered charity called Friends of Pets United. The Times found no evidence any of that was true.
Santos claimed that his grandparents escaped the Holocaust and that the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center “claimed my mother’s life.” But genealogical records contracted his assertion of family ties to the Shoah, and The Times reported that his mother wasn’t in New York on 9/11.
The congressman’s criminal charges also allege repeated deception. Prosecutors say that Santos engaged in a fraudulent campaign contribution scheme tracing back to September 2022, through a limited liability company that he allegedly used to defraud prospective political supporters.
Santos also stands accused of insurance fraud in 2020, by allegedly falsely claiming unemployment to reap benefits designed to help those who lost their jobs during the Covid-19 pandemic. At the time, prosecutors say, he actually made a $120,000 salary.
The freshman congressman also lied to the House of Representatives and the public in statements about his financial condition, prosecutors say.
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