George Santos’ Ex-Campaign Treasurer to Plead Guilty to Felony as Congressman Faces His Own Federal Indictment

The previous treasurer for embattled Republican Rep. George Santos will plead responsible Thursday afternoon to at the least one felony cost, in accordance with court docket filings.

ABC Information cites court docket data that point out Nancy Marks, the previous treasurer for Santos, “has waived indictment and can plead responsible to a felony data filed by the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace for the Japanese District of New York.”

Marks, ABC experiences, resigned from Santos’ staff in January and the particular felony cost (or prices) in opposition to her stay underneath seal.

Santos, in the meantime, pleaded not responsible to 13 felony counts in federal court docket in Could after investigators unsealed an indictment hours earlier, which charged him with seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of cash laundering, one depend of theft of public funds and two counts of creating materially false statements to the Home of Representatives.

Santos surrendered to federal authorities at a suburban Lengthy Island courthouse forward of his arraignment and was launched on $500,000 bond.

If convicted, the freshman Republican congressman faces a most penalty of 20 years in jail for the highest counts, in accordance with the Justice Division.

In an unsealed indictment, federal prosecutors say Santos allegedly “devised and executed a scheme” aimed toward defrauding donors to his 2022 political marketing campaign.

That scheme, prosecutors allege, included making use of for and receiving unemployment advantages on the top of the pandemic — whereas he was employed and working a Congressional marketing campaign. The fraud continued, the indictment provides, when Santos allegedly started pocketing marketing campaign contributions to purchase designer clothes and repay his private money owed.

Santos was elected in November to signify a New York district made up of components of Lengthy Island and Queens.

He grew to become the topic of controversy quickly after, when The New York Instances reported that he had misled voters about the whole lot from his degree of training and former jobs to household ties to the Holocaust.

Santos admitted to a number of the lies — like saying he had labored at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, which he didn’t, and saying he had attended Baruch Faculty and New York College, when he didn’t graduate faculty — however many questions continued. Among the mysteries surrounding Santos have centered on the supply of his earnings, which has seemingly grown by a whole lot of hundreds of {dollars} lately.

In 2020, when he launched his first run for the Home, Santos said in a monetary disclosure that he had no belongings and no earned earnings. However his monetary state of affairs appeared to have markedly improved by the point he determined to launch a second run for the Home in 2022, with Federal Election Fee filings exhibiting he lent at the least $700,000 to his marketing campaign, and $27,000 to his political motion committee.

In January, Santos instructed colleagues he would briefly resign from his assignments on the Small Enterprise and Science Committees whereas varied investigations into his previous play out.

Regardless of the continuing investigations, the freshman lawmaker filed paperwork for his 2024 reelection marketing campaign in March to maintain his District 3 seat, in accordance with the Federal Election Fee web site.