Indicted Rep. George Santos has confessed to theft in Brazil, a move that will prevent the New York Republican from being criminally prosecuted there. That’s nice for him. It frees up some of his time to defend himself from criminal prosecution here at home.
Santos has to pay the U.S. dollar equivalent of roughly $2,000 in fines and $2,800 to the victim in the next 30 days before the charges are officially dropped. In 2008, when he was 19, Santos bought clothing and shoes from a shop in the city of Niterói using a stolen checkbook and a fake identity. Several days later, another man tried to return the shoes, saying Santos had given them to him. When shop owner Carlos Bruno Simões realized it was theft, he filed charges. Santos eventually admitted the crime and was formally charged in 2011, but then disappeared and the case was in limbo until Santos burst into American headlines as the lying freshman congressman.
Santos agreed to the plea deal Thursday via video conference, because he can’t leave the United States. He relinquished his passports and can’t travel outside of New York state and Washington, D.C., without court permission after being criminally charged in New York on Wednesday. The indictment includes seven counts of wire fraud, some connected to fraudulently taking unemployment benefits; three counts of money laundering; one count of stealing public funds; and two counts of lying to Congress.
And while he was virtually confessing to theft in Brazil, Santos was continuing to profess his innocence in the U.S.
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