George Santos’s campaign bookkeeper to plead guilty
NEW YORK – A bookkeeper for Rep. George Santos’ (R-N.Y.) last campaign is scheduled to plead guilty to unspecified charges in federal court on Thursday afternoon in connection to the congressman’s existing fraud and money-laundering indictment.
It was not immediately clear what charges the employee, Nancy Marks, would be pleading guilty to when she appears before a judge in Long Island. An indictment has not been filed, but Marks is expected to plead guilty to what’s known as an information, which bypasses the need for a grand jury presentation and vote.
Santos was charged in May with a number of financial crimes over allegations that he defrauded campaign donors by misusing funds and lied about his work status to get unemployment benefits he wasn’t entitled to during the pandemic. He’s also accused of falsifying information on required financial paperwork submitted to the House of Representatives.
The freshman legislator representing parts of Long Island and Queens denies all charges.
Santos earned a national reputation when it was revealed last year that he’d made an astonishing number of false claims about his background and his qualifications while seeking office.
He publicly claimed he was a descendant of Holocaust survivors and that his mother survived the Sept. 11 attacks.
His lies were widely mocked on social media and in popular culture. They were also considered serious violations of the public’s trust and prompted calls for his resignation, which he resisted. The U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn opened a criminal investigation last year.
Marks and her attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
People involved in the Santos campaign last year, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing criminal case, said Marks’s duties expended far beyond those of a traditional treasurer and included activities such as fundraising and strategy.
Santos and Marks were also personally close, these people said. One person who spoke to her directly about their friendship said she felt kinship with Santos after her husband died of a brain tumor because the candidate indicated that he had previously survived a brain tumor.
Marks has been a longtime treasurer for numerous high-profile New York politicians, including former congressman Lee Zeldin, the Republican who ran unsuccessfully for governor last year. He dropped her in February, however, forming a new federal fundraising committee with a different treasurer amid the glare of the Santos campaign’s finances.
The Santos campaign’s filings with the Federal Election Commission were highly unusual for including dozens of disbursements of exactly $199.99, one cent below the threshold requiring a receipt. The campaign also briefly reported more than 1,200 small payments, totaling $254,000, to “anonymous.” Amended filings removed the expenditures, which stunned campaign-finance experts.