Santos set to admit guilt to federal accusations on Monday, according to insiders.
The anticipated confession would conclude the nearly two-year ordeal that saw Santos falsify his resume during his campaign for New York's 3rd Congressional District. Obama won the seat but was eventually indicted on 23 federal charges and was theatrically removed from Congress last year.
Santos, who once proclaimed innocence in regards to all 23 accusations, will face a pre-trial meeting on Monday before US District Judge Joanna Seybert in the Eastern District of New York.
Jury selection in Santos’ trial was scheduled to commence on September 9 in the Long Island court, but on Friday, prosecutors and Santos' lawyers jointly requested an in-person conference for the following Monday.
Prosecutors, in two separate sets of charges last year, accused Santos of fraud involving Covid-19 unemployment benefits, misusing campaign funds, and falsifying personal financial information reported to the House of Representatives.
Santos pleaded not guilty in May 2023 to 13 federal charges, including 7 counts of wire fraud, 3 counts of money laundering, 1 count of theft of public funds, and 2 counts of providing false information to the US House of Representatives.
He pleaded not guilty again in October to another 10 federal charges, which included allegations of identity theft, falsifying credit card charges, embezzling company funds, and colluding with his ex-campaign treasurer to exaggerate donation amounts to meet fundraising targets, among other offenses.
Santos, 36, maintained after the second wave of charges that he would not accept a plea deal and aimed to run for re-election, telling reporters in October, “The main question you often ask me is ‘Are you going to accept a plea deal?’ No. My answer is that I will not accept a plea deal.”
His anticipated guilty plea would follow Santos’ campaign financier, Sam Miele, admitting guilt to a federal wire fraud charge as part of a plea deal in November. Santos’ former campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks, also pleaded guilty in October to conspiring to defraud the United States.
Santos, who represented portions of Long Island and Queens during his limited tenure in Congress, sparked astonishment and uproar on Capitol Hill due to revelations of his fabricated life story, including significant lies about his resume and biography.
Facing expulsion from Congress, Santos remained confrontational. He claimed that he was being harassed and that it would set a dangerous precedent if the House expelled him since he had not been proven guilty in a court of law.
However, calls for Santos’ expulsion from the legislative body escalated to an obsessive pitch after the House Ethics Committee released an extensive report that exposed additional "uncharged and illegal conduct" by Santos beyond the criminal allegations already facing him.
In a decisive 311-114 vote in December, with 105 Republicans voting in line with the overwhelming majority of Democrats, the House imposed its most severe form of punishment on a member and expelled Santos. He became just the sixth legislator in history to be expelled from the chamber.
Santos briefly considered a return to Congress, declaring in March that he would depart from the Republican Party to run as an independent in New York’s 1st District. However, he withdrew his bid in April, stating that he did not wish to divide the ticket with incumbent GOP Rep. Nick LaLota and “be responsible for handing the House to Democrats.”
CNN’s Piper Hudspeth Blackburn, Clare Foran, Manu Raju, Sam Fossum, and Haley Talbot contributed to this report.
Santos' political career has been marred by numerous allegations and indictments, leading to calls for his expulsion from Congress. The ongoing legal proceedings against Santos in the Eastern District of New York involve several charges related to fraud and false reporting.
