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Congressman George Santos Facing New Criminal Charges Including Identity Theft, Fraud

Federal prosecutors on Long Island filed new criminal charges against Rep. George Santos on Tuesday, accusing him, among other things, of stealing people’s identities and making charges on his own donors’ credit cards without their authorization, and lying to federal election officials.

The 23-count superseding indictment also includes charges such as wire fraud, making false statements to the Federal Election Commission, and money laundering.

The charges follow the indictment last week of Santos’ former campaign finance chief Nancy Marks.

Santos walked out of the closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill Tuesday night to a flood of cameras and reporters, saying he will fight the new charges “until the bitter end.”

“I’m just going to look at – look, you’re all acting like I’m not entitled to due process, and innocent until proven guilty,” Santos said.

When asked about his next steps, Santos said “Nothing! I’m just going to go defend myself. I have a court date on August 27 to October 27, and then there’s probably going to be something else scheduled after that, I’m entitled to due process, I’m going to defend myself.”

When asked if he would resign, Santos said, “I will not.”

Together prosecutors said they enlisted 10 family members without their knowledge to donate to the campaign to make it seem like Santos was getting enough support to qualify for party funds.

According to the charges, Santos said he had loaned his campaign $500,000 in an attempt to convince Republican Party officials that he was a serious candidate, when he actually had less than $8,000 in his personal accounts.

“As alleged, Santos is charged with stealing people’s identities and making charges on his own donors’ credit cards without their authorization, lying to the FEC and, by extension, the public about the financial state of his campaign,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement.

Rep. Santos’ lawyer declined to comment when asked by ABC News.

The new charges include allegations that he charged more than $44,000 to his campaign over a period of months using cards belonging to contributors without their knowledge. In one case, he charged $12,000 to a contributor’s credit card and transferred the “vast majority” of that money into his personal bank account, prosecutors said.

Santos is due back in court on October 27.

 

 

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