Ex-Long Island congressman George Santos to begin serving sentence on federal corruption charges

Disgraced ex-Long Island congressman George Santos, whose web of lies resulted in his conviction on federal corruption charges and the loss of his Long Island congressional seat, is set to report to federal prison Friday to begin serving his sentence of more than 7 years.

Santos, a former Queens resident who turned 37 on Tuesday and is now living in Pennsylvania, has been lashing out in recent weeks on social media against the federal prosecutors who secured convictions against him on charges of lying to Congress and stealing from his campaign contributors and the online trolls who apparently wish him ill will in prison.

Santos must surrender to the federal Bureau of Prisons by 2 p.m. Friday, according to court documents.

"I’m going to prison, that’s a fact," Santos wrote on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, on July 12. "I [expletive] up, that’s a fact. My ‘plea deal’ is a sham and my sentence is political — those are facts!"

His lawyer Joseph Murray declined on Wednesday to disclose where his client was set to serve his prison sentence and did not answer when asked whether he had officially sought a pardon from President Donald Trump, which he earlier had said he planned to do.

"It doesn’t matter if I get pardoned or not, I will continue to support President Trump," Santos said in a recent video he posted online. "I’ve supported him for a decade. It’s not going to be because of some self-centered issue of my own that I’m gonna stop supporting him. So stop trying to think that you’re owning me like, ‘He’s not gonna pardon you, turn on him.’ Dude, never. If I turn on him, I turn on everything I believe in."

Last August, Santos pleaded guilty to aggravated identity theft and wire fraud.

Prosecutors said Santos committed a series of crimes as he ran for Congress, which included: fraudulently receiving unemployment benefits that were authorized during the coronavirus pandemic, lying on his congressional financial disclosure forms, filing fraudulent fundraising reports to get support for his congressional campaign, and stealing thousands of dollars from his campaign contributors by charging their credit cards without authorization.

Santos' lawyers had advocated for a sentence of 2 years, while prosecutors said the "unrepentant" Santos should spend 87 months, or 7 years and 3 months, in prison.

Santos, a Republican who grew up in Whitestone, Queens, was elected in 2022 to represent New York’s 3rd Congressional District, which includes the North Shore of Nassau County and northeast Queens.

He attracted national attention and scrutiny after The New York Times, and then other outlets, reported on a series of lies he told about his professional and personal life as he campaigned, including that he graduated from New York University, worked for prestigious investment banks, that his mother was in the south tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, and that he is Jewish, among other lies.

One of Santos' attorneys, Andrew Mancilla, said at his sentencing that Santos had grown up in "an impoverished, broken home" and his serial mistruths were a product of his attempt at being accepted in elite political circles.

"He thought the world wouldn't accept him for what he was," said Mancilla. "He built a man that he wanted to be."

U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert told Santos he had engaged in "flagrant thievery" just before she imposed his sentence.

Santos, who served in Congress for 11 months, was the sixth member of Congress to be expelled from the House of Representatives, which followed the release of a scathing report from the House Ethics Committee that said it had found "overwhelming evidence" that Santos committed crimes. 

Santos coconspirator Nancy Marks, his former campaign treasurer and a Shirley resident, was sentenced to 3 years' probation for her role in conspiring with Santos to file fraudulent campaign finance reports. 

Eastern District prosecutors declined to comment through a spokesman.

By Nicole Fuller

nicole.fuller@newsday.com@NicoleFuller

Nicole Fuller is Newsday's senior criminal justice reporter. She began working at Newsday in 2012 and previously covered local government.