Federal prosecutors on Long Island filed new criminal charges against Rep. George Santos on Tuesday, accusing him of stealing people’s identities, making charges on his donors’ credit cards without their authorization and lying to federal election officials.
Specifically, in Tuesday’s 23-count superseding indictment, Santos has been charged with “two counts of wire fraud, two counts of making materially false statements to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), two counts of falsifying records submitted to obstruct the FEC, two counts of aggravated identity theft and one count of access device fraud,” the United States Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York said in a release.
“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. Santos falsely inflated the campaign’s reported receipts with non-existent loans and contributions that were either fabricated or stolen,” Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement. “This Office will relentlessly pursue criminal charges against anyone who uses the electoral process as an opportunity to defraud the public and our government institutions.”
The charges follow the indictment last week of Santos’ former campaign finance chief Nancy Marks. Prosecutors allege 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 allegedly said he lent his campaign $500,000 when he only had $8,000 on hand.
Rep. Santos’ lawyer declined to comment when reached by ABC News.
When asked by reporters on Capitol Hill if he would step down Tuesday night following the new charges, Santos said, “I will not.”
“I have no comment,” he added.
Santos was indicted on 13 criminal counts, including seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds and two counts of making materially false statements to the House of Representatives, by federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York in May. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges.
Santos is due back in court on Oct. 27.
-ABC News’ Will Steakin, Rachel Scott and Jolie Lash contributed to this report.
Source: abc news
