Former Rep. George Santos expected to plead guilty, people close to case say

George Santos, the former Republican member of Congress from New York undone by a mind-bending array of biographical lies and moneymaking schemes, has told prosecutors that he intends to plead guilty and avoid a federal trial that was expected to begin next month, according to two lawyers involved in the case and two other people with knowledge of the matter.

The plea, which is expected to occur Monday in U.S. District Court in Central Islip, New York, would spare Santos from a trial that almost certainly would have been a colorful spectacle.

Santos, whose trial on 23 felony charges was scheduled to begin on Sept. 9, could still change his mind. But this week, two lawyers representing multiple witnesses in the case were told by federal prosecutors that Santos had decided to plead guilty.

Two others with knowledge of the plans confirmed that he intends to plead guilty Monday; one of the people said Santos is expected to give a statement in court acknowledging his crimes. The terms of his expected guilty plea and what sentence he might face were not clear.

Public court records show that an in-person hearing has been scheduled for Monday afternoon at the request of prosecutors and Santos’ lawyers. The records did not explain the purpose of the hearing. Santos and one of his lawyers, Joseph Murray, did not respond to requests for comment.

The expected plea was first reported by Talking Points Memo.

Santos, 36, was first indicted on 13 charges in May 2023 after a lengthy investigation into a series of financial crimes that federal prosecutors accused him of. Ten more counts followed in October.

Santos had initially pleaded not guilty to all counts, and, in an apparent effort to invoke former President Donald Trump, declared the prosecution to be “a witch hunt.” His apparent decision to change course comes months after two-thirds of his colleagues in the House of Representatives voted to expel him in December – making him only the sixth member of the House to be expelled in the body’s history.

Two of his campaign staffers pleaded guilty for misconduct related to his campaign. His former campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks, pleaded guilty last year to doctoring the campaign’s financial records in coordination with Santos, including a role in fraudulently reporting a fictitious $500,000 loan that Santos claimed to have made to his campaign. Prosecutors this week would not clarify whether they intended to seek Marks’ testimony in Santos’ trial.

The majority of the counts in the indictment against Santos were linked to his successful 2022 congressional campaign in New York’s 3rd Congressional District, which covers parts of northeast Queens and Nassau County on Long Island. Prosecutors said that Santos and Marks strategically falsified his official filings, including nonexistent donations and the fictional $500,000 loan, to bolster the campaign’s image and earn support from national Republicans.

Santos was also accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars from donors by repeatedly charging their credit cards and through soliciting donations to what they claimed was a super political action committee. Prosecutors said that Santos spent some of the money on his and other candidates’ campaigns, and some on personal expenses, including credit card debt and luxury designer clothing.

Santos was also charged with lying about his income on his House disclosure form and collecting $24,000 of unemployment money when he was, in fact, employed.

Earlier this week, a court hearing suggested that momentum was building toward a trial. The court had already summoned about 800 potential jurors, and prosecutors said they had lined up as many as 30 witnesses.

Santos appeared at the hearing Tuesday, where he reiterated his not guilty plea on 23 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, stealing public funds and lying on federal disclosure forms, as well as conspiracy and aggravated identity theft.

The expected plea represents the final chapter of a dramatic reversal of fortunes for Santos, whose upset win in 2022 helped to secure his party’s control of the House of Representatives.

Calling himself the “new face of the Republican Party,” Santos won his seat by invoking his identity as a gay man and son of immigrants as proof that Republican values had broad appeal.

Santos’ electoral success was undercut however, by a New York Times article that uncovered fabrications of nearly everything else about his background in his pitch to voters. He had not worked on Wall Street, as he claimed, or managed a portfolio of real estate. He had not obtained any of the degrees he put on his résumé, nor had he any of the wealth that he boasted of.

Santos’ many fabrications continued to unravel, revealing he had lied about things as minor as a college volleyball scholarship, and as significant as family ties to tragedies including 9/11 and the Holocaust.

After Santos was expelled from the House, he briefly found acclaim on the website Cameo, where he initially commanded as much as $500 for personalized video messages.

But the price soon fell, leaving Santos to explore other moneymaking bids, from a documentary to a cryptocurrency project. He announced in June that he had joined OnlyFans, a paid subscription platform best known for adult content but which hosts other content creators. A report by the bipartisan House Ethics Committee found that Santos had improperly spent Republican donors’ money on at least one payment to the website.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.