[47] In June 2020, during his first run for Congress, Santos (under the name George Devolder) opened an office for Harbor City Capital in Manhattan[48] and became the firm's New York regional director.

[58] The committee found that when Santos applied for a business account in May 2021, he told the bank that the organization made $800,000 in net profit every year and grossed $1.5M; his May 2022 campaign financial disclosure said that the company's assets were in the $1M to $1.5M range.

[61][62] Santos ran as a Republican for the United States House of Representatives in New York's 3rd congressional district, against Democratic incumbent Tom Suozzi, launching his campaign in November 2019.

[63] Santos raised funds, spoke to donor groups, and attended a phone-banking session at Mar-a-Lago with Donald Trump's children; his efforts impressed party officials.

[70] Then-New York state Republican chair Nick Langworthy noted that "George never stopped being a candidate" and was "spending time at Mar-a-Lago, raising money in different circles".

[63] In September 2022, The North Shore Leader raised questions about Santos's employment, financial disclosures, and claims of wealth, but other media outlets did not report on the matter until after the election.

[130] In a January 2020 appearance on Talking GOP, a cable TV show he co-hosted, Santos claimed his maternal grandfather grew up Jewish, converted to Catholicism before the Holocaust, and raised his children Catholic.

[24][132] On his campaign website, Santos wrote that his mother was "the first female executive at a major financial institution", worked in the South Tower of the World Trade Center, and died "a few years later" after surviving the September 11 attacks.

[43] In January 2023, Santos falsely told a Republican Party chairman that he had been a "star player" on the Baruch volleyball team (as his LinkBridge supervisor had been), having won the league championship and defeated Yale University.

[78] Campaign documents claimed that Santos held a master of business administration (MBA) from New York University (NYU) and that he had scored a 710 on the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT).

[24] On a 2022 podcast, Santos claimed that while employed at Goldman Sachs seven years earlier, he had attended the SALT Conference; while there, he had allegedly criticized the company for investing in renewable energy, calling it a taxpayer-subsidized scam.

[176] In his 2020 campaign online biography, Santos claimed he and his family had worked charitably on behalf of children born with the rare genetic skin disorder epidermolysis bullosa (EB).

In February 2022, he had spent $1,700 at two Atlantic City casinos, $1,500 at a pet store, and smaller amounts on JetBlue, various retailers and the Adventureland amusement park in East Farmingdale on Long Island.

[208] On January 24, the campaign filed amended reports with the FEC, unchecking boxes that said two loans, including $750,000, had come from Santos's personal funds without explaining who did lend the money.

One donor said the $20,000 the campaign reported he gave ($7,000 more than his records showed in contributions to Santos and related organizations) was in 24 separate transactions, all of which used his former address but different versions of his name, and incorrectly claimed he had a spouse.

[230][231] Some contributors to the Santos campaign said they were motivated to give to him because of his supposed Wall Street experience or his claim to be Jewish, both later found to be fictitious, and felt cheated in the wake of those disclosures.

[226] The House Ethics Committee reported that a witness identified as working for the Forte campaign[s] confronted Santos in December 2021 about his failure to disclose his interest in Red Strategies.

[244] Two months later, Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the most senior Democrat in the House and a former member of the party's leadership, wrote the Ethics Committee asking they make public whatever they had found so far about Santos.

[166] Morey-Parker recalls that eviction notices were sent monthly,[253] that new roommates rapidly cycled through the apartment,[254] and that Santos's personal finances fluctuated wildly: "[He] would go to bars with rolls of hundred dollar bills and, three days later, he would have no money.

His landlady filed for eviction, and he agreed to leave by December 24 and pay her $2,250 in back rent,[172] telling the court that his mother's illness had hindered his ability to work but he would soon be able to repay the money from "business loans".

FOPU activities are poorly documented, and in 2022, The Times found little evidence of its existence other than a closed Facebook account; former volunteers and associates described it as disorganized and said that far fewer animals were saved.

Tiffany Bogosian, a school friend of Santos's from Queens, assisted in getting the charges dropped after he told her that his checkbook had been stolen in 2017 and he had received an extradition warrant from Pennsylvania at his New York address in 2020.

[258] A pet rescue operator in the Bronx told the Times that after Santos had boasted of his Wall Street experience and connections to her to assure her he could raise thousands of dollars for her organization, he held a fundraiser in March 2017 and then sent her a check for $400.

[271] After the story was reported in 2023, Trelha made a sworn declaration to the FBI that he had committed the crime at the urging of Santos, who had also taught him how to set up the skimmer and camera necessary to steal passwords and how to clone ATM and credit cards.

Prosecutors accused Santos of "three distinct schemes": fraudulent solicitation of political contributions, unemployment benefits fraud, and making false statements on the financial disclosure reports he submitted to the House of Representatives.

[279][280] At the arraignment the day the indictment was unsealed, Santos pleaded not guilty and was granted pretrial release on a $500,000 bond with conditions, including surrendering his passport and restricting his travel to Long Island, New York City, and Washington, D.C.

Kappel said it was "bad news" for him, noting that the lack of a provision in the agreement that she continue cooperating may indicate that the government has enough evidence implicating Santos to believe her testimony would not be needed to convict him.

[294] On August 19, 2024, Santos pleaded guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft as part of a plea deal in which he also admitted to committing the other crimes with which he was charged in the superseding indictment.

[298] According to Breon Peace, United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, the plea agreement was secured when Santos agreed to serve at least the two-year minimum required under law for the identity theft charges.

[315] In statements acknowledging the marriage, Santos said that he loved his then wife; however, he also said that he had been comfortably and openly gay for at least the preceding decade, an assertion broadly supported by friends, former coworkers, and roommates.