George Santos admits resume fabrications, says he will take office

Embattled Congressman-elect George Santos admitted Monday that he fabricated parts of his resume and work history, but said he will take office in the New Year.

Santos, 34, was the subject of a Dec. 19 New York Times report that revealed he may have falsely claimed to have graduated from Baruch College in Manhattan and worked for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.

"I want to make sure that if I disappointed anyone by resume embellishments, I'm sorry," Santos said on WABC radio Monday. In an interview with John Catsimatidis, the right-wing billionaire and grocery chain magnate, Santos said: "I will deliver to you on everything I campaigned on because it's still the same guy, still the same message, still the same priorities."

Still, he insisted, "I will be sworn in, I will take office."

Santos did not address his college background in the radio interview, but told the New York Post in an article published Monday: “I didn’t graduate from any institution of higher learning. I’m embarrassed and sorry for having embellished my resume,” he said. “I own up to that … We do stupid things in life.”

Santos in his two runs for Congress has claimed to have graduated from Baruch College. The college told The New York Times they had no record of his graduation.

As for his work history, Santos said he was the vice president at LinkBridge investors, where he "did extensive work" with Goldman Sachs and "did extensive work with Citigroup." But he said he did not work for them.

"The way it stated on the resume, 'doing work for.' I have worked for, not on or at, or in. Yeah, I understand that and let that be a lesson learned for everybody," he said.

A spokesman for Nassau GOP chairman Joseph Cairo did not respond to a request for comment Monday night.

Last week, Cairo told Newsday: "While I have indicated that the Congressman-Elect deserves a reasonable amount of time to respond to the media, voters deserve a sincere accounting from Mr. Santos. I will be listening attentively, and I want to hear meaningful remarks from George Santos."

Santos said on WABC that he was an American citizen, born in Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, on July 22, 1988, in "abject poverty."

He said he was "not a criminal" and that over the past week he had been accused of being a "Russian asset."

The New York Times' report revealed a criminal case in Brazil. When Santos was 19, in 2008, Brazilian authorities charged Santos with stealing the checkbook of a man his mother worked for as a caretaker.

According to the Times article, Santos made fraudulent purchases with the checkbook and later confessed to the crime.

He did not respond to an official court summons and a representative for the court was unable to locate Santos, the Times said.

Santos disputed the charge in the Post article, but did not elaborate.

He told WABC radio: "I'm not a criminal. Not here, not abroad in any jurisdiction in the world have I ever committed any crimes, and I'm more than happy to corroborate that with anybody willing to see copies of a picture of my renewed passports, my continued visits to and from Brazil," he said. "I'm not a fraud. I'm not a criminal who defrauded the entire country and made up this fictional character and ran for congress."

He also told the New York Post that he had been married to a woman, but is now "very much gay."

He also confirmed the Times' description that he had been sued over unpaid rent, telling the Post his family was "engulfed in debt" and "had issues paying rent …"

He told the Post he never paid the owed rent, saying he "completely forgot about it."

By Scott Eidler

scott.eidler@newsday.com@ScottEidler

Scott Eidler covers Nassau County government and politics for Newsday. Scott has worked at Newsday since 2012 and previously covered municipal government and education.