NY Rep. George Santos hit with more federal charges in new court filings

NEW YORK — U.S. Rep. George Santos hit unsuspecting donors with tens of thousands of dollars in phony credit card charges, according to new court documents, the latest twist in the series of scandals enveloping the freshman congressman.

The charges were laid out in a new superseding indictment against the New York representative on Tuesday evening, and they come a week after his campaign manager pleaded guilty to one of the schemes alleged by the government.

Nancy Marks admitted she conspired with Santos to falsify Federal Election Commission filings to make it look like he got enough donor cash to qualify for financial and logistics support from an unnamed national campaign committee. She admitted that 10 donations attributed to her and Santos' family members didn't really happen. Another fabrication she confessed was a fake $500,000 loan from Santos to his campaign, according to court documents. In fact, he had less than $8,000 in his personal business account at the time of the phony transaction, prosecutors allege.

New Tuesday are charges saying Santos participated in the scheme and, further, repeatedly charged his contributors' credit cards without their authorization from December 2021 to August 2022, then lying about where the influx of campaign cash was coming from.

One contributor was hit with at least $44,800 in unauthorized charges — including a single $12,000 charge that mostly went into his personal bank account, federal prosecutors said.

Santos, 35, was initially indicted in May on wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and making false statements to Congress. He was accused of collecting COVID-related unemployment funds while working as an investment firm director, running a bogus political action committee and using campaign donor money to buy designer clothes and pay his personal debts, plus a string of lies to Congress about his assets and income.

A staffer, Sam Miele, was also indicted on charges he impersonated former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's now-retired chief of staff to dupe donors into giving Santos money during the 2020 and 2022 election cycles.

The congressman from Long Island and part of Queens won his 2022 congressional race on a foundation of fabrications about his education, religion, family history, professional experience and property ownership.

His lies unraveled shortly after his arrest, making him a national punchline, but he has so far resisted calls to resign from Congress.

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