Former U.S. Rep. George Santos is due in court Monday afternoon, where a person familiar with the matter said the New York Republican is expected to plead guilty to multiple charges in his federal fraud case.
The person could not publicly discuss the details of the plea and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Santos and his attorney did not respond to requests for comment.
The case is scheduled to go to trial at the beginning of next month. Monday afternoon’s trial date on Long Island was not set until Friday at the request of both prosecutors and Santos’ attorneys. The letter presented by the request did not specify what it was about.
Santos has previously denied committing several alleged financial crimes, including lying to Congress about his wealth, collecting unemployment benefits while working and using campaign contributions to pay for personal expenses.
The 36-year-old was once touted as a rising political star after flipping a suburban district that spans affluent Long Island’s north shore and part of the New York borough of Queens.
But his life story began to unravel before he was sworn into office. At the time, reports surfaced that he had lied about a career at top Wall Street firms and his college degree, as well as other questions about his biography.
New questions then arose about his campaign funds.
He was first indicted federally in May 2023, but refused to resign. Santos was expelled from Congress after an ethics investigation found “overwhelming evidence” that he had broken the law and taken advantage of his public position.
Santos has previously maintained his innocence, though he said in an interview in December that settling with prosecutors was “not on the table.”
Asked if he was afraid of going to prison, he told CBS 2 at the time, “I think everybody should be afraid of going to prison, it’s not a pretty place and I definitely want to work hard to avoid it as much as possible.”
As the trial date approached in recent weeks, Santos had sought to have a partially anonymous jury, and his attorneys argued in court documents that “the mere risk of public ridicule could affect the ability of individual jurors to decide Santos’ case solely on the facts and the law as presented in court.”
He also wanted potential jurors to fill out a written questionnaire assessing their opinion of him. His lawyers argued that the inquiry was necessary because “Santos has already been found guilty in a general court”.
Judge Joanna Seybert agreed to keep the jurors’ identities public, but said no to questioning.
Prosecutors, however, had sought to admit into evidence some of the financial lies Santos told during his campaign, including that he had worked at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs and that he had run a family business with about $80 million in assets.
Two Santos campaign aides have already pleaded guilty to crimes related to the former congressman’s campaign.
His former treasurer, Nancy Marks, pleaded guilty in October to a fraud conspiracy charge, accusing Santos of an alleged scheme to embellish his campaign finance reports with fake loans and fake donors. Marks’ attorney said at the time that his client was willing to testify against Santos if asked.
Sam Miele, a former fundraiser for Santos, pleaded guilty a month later to a federal fraud charge, admitting that he impersonated a high-ranking congressional aide while raising money for the Santos campaign.
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Associated Press writer Michael R. Sisak contributed to this report.
