Former Rep. George Santos sentenced to 87 months in prison

Ryan Tarinelli, CQ-Roll Call on Apr 25, 2025

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A federal judge sentenced disgraced former New York Republican Rep. George Santos to more than seven years in prison on Friday, rounding out a court case tied to one of the most notorious congressional storylines in recent memory.

The scandal-scarred Santos pleaded guilty last year to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft after prosecutors charged him with various schemes, including one that accused him of inflating his campaign’s fundraising numbers to receive financial support from the national party. The former lawmaker had been facing 23 charges.

Judge Joanna Seybert of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York handed down an 87-month sentence, according to media reports from New York, which is in line with the prison recommendation from federal prosecutors.

A stiff sentence, prosecutors argued, was necessary to protect the public from being defrauded again by the former lawmaker.

“Over the course of many years, Santos has returned to a criminal lifestyle,” prosecutors wrote in a filing. “He has stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars; he has defrauded the elderly and impaired; he has victimized donors, political committees, government agencies.”

“It is abundantly clear that, without a substantial deterrent, Santos will continue to deceive and defraud for years to come,” prosecutors wrote.

Prosecutors had accused Santos of a wide array of criminal activity.

Authorities said Santos and another campaign official agreed to submit false information to the Federal Election Commission. The goal, authorities said, was to make sure that Santos qualified for a national party committee program that required Santos to show his campaign had raised at least a quarter million dollars from third-party contributors in a single quarter.

Santos was also accused of being involved in a credit card fraud scheme, with authorities saying he stole the financial information of campaign donors and then charged their credit cards without their authorization.

House lawmakers expelled Santos from the chamber in 2023. The move terminated Santos’ short congressional tenure, one in which the Long Island lawmaker faced ethics and criminal allegations as he became a lightning rod of attention.

Attorneys for Santos sought a two-year prison sentence for him, saying in a sentencing memorandum that the former lawmaker’s crimes were nonviolent and did not involve physical harm.

“His conduct, though involving dishonesty and abuse of trust, stemmed largely from a misguided desperation related to his political campaign, rather than inherent malice,” his attorneys wrote in the memorandum.

They also argued he understood “the gravity of his conduct” and “expresses genuine remorse.”

But the prosecution, in a later filing to the court ahead of the sentencing, slammed Santos and pointed to his social media posts, arguing he was “unrepentant” for his crimes.

In one post they referenced, Santos said “the DOJ has had a hard on for me since December of 2022.”

“Put plainly, Santos is not genuinely remorseful, despite accepting responsibility as part of his allocution,” the prosecution wrote. “If he were, his actions would be different.”

Prosecutors said Santos was approaching sentencing with “belligerence and an insatiable appetite for ‘likes,’ blaming his situation on everyone except himself.”