Disgraced former congressman George Santos has requested a New York choose to delay his sentencing on federal fraud fees till the summer time so he can repay greater than half 1,000,000 {dollars} in fines by making extra episodes of his not too long ago launched podcast “Pants on Hearth.”
However prosecutors, of their response Tuesday, dismissed the New York Republican’s guarantees of a monetary boon as “extraordinarily speculative” and derided this system’s title as a “tone-deaf and unrepentant reference to the crimes he dedicated.”
In addition they forged doubt on his declare of getting little greater than $1,000 in liquid belongings as they argued for the sentencing to proceed as scheduled on Feb. 7.
Prosecutors say the 36-year-old Santos has earned greater than $400,000 from appearances on Cameo, the video-sharing web site, and one other $400,000 from a brand new documentary since he was expelled from the U.S. Home in December 2023. Santos was simply the sixth Home member within the chamber’s historical past to be ousted by colleagues.
His earnings, prosecutors stated, come on prime of the roughly $174,000 taxpayer-funded wage he obtained throughout his 11-month stint on Capitol Hill.
“His letter fails to offer any accounting of his present monetary situation; fails to supply any clarification of his dissipation of belongings (together with private spending) within the months since his responsible plea,” prosecutors wrote.
Legal professionals for Santos didn’t instantly reply to an e-mail searching for remark Tuesday.
Elected in 2022, Santos was a once-rising Republican star for flipping a rich New York district masking components of Queens and Lengthy Island.
However his life story unraveled even earlier than taking workplace, together with his claims of a profession at prime Wall Avenue companies and having a school diploma debunked amid questions about how he funded his marketing campaign.
In August, he pleaded responsible to wire fraud and aggravated id theft, admitting that he duped voters, deceived donors, and stole the identities of almost a dozen folks, together with his family members, to make donations to his marketing campaign.
On the time, Santos blamed ambition for clouding his judgment and stated he was “flooded with deep remorse.” He faces a compulsory minimal two-year sentence for the id theft cost and a most of twenty-two years in jail.
As a part of a deal negotiated with prosecutors, Santos agreed to pay almost $580,000 in fines, together with almost $375,000 in restitution and $205,000 in forfeiture.
However on Friday, his legal professionals requested the choose to postpone the sentencing till August, noting he’s required to pay the forfeiture 30 days earlier than his court docket date.
They stated the weekly podcast he introduced shortly after pleading responsible represents a “promising income stream,” however, as a result of “technical and logistical impediments,” wasn’t launched till Dec. 15.
“Mr. Santos now has a viable path to creating significant progress in satisfying his obligations, requiring solely extra time for the quarterly compensation construction to generate enough funds,” his legal professionals wrote.
Prosecutors nevertheless, countered that Santos’ request supplies no particulars in regards to the enterprise’s predicted monetary returns.
They stated his compensation, based mostly on a report from the probation division, will seemingly consist of fifty% of internet earnings, to be paid inside 90 days of the top of every calendar quarter — an association that’s “extremely unlikely to internet Santos sufficient cash to fulfill his restitution and forfeiture obligations by August.”
Prosecutors additionally cautioned that granting the delay would “create a perverse incentive construction,” by which defendants who capitalized on their “notoriety and criminality” have been rewarded.
“Put in another way, permitting Santos to stave off sentencing particularly to monetize his infamy would ship a message to the general public that crime pays,” they wrote.
