Rep. George Santos has taken care of at least one pesky criminal detail from his past. Yesterday, the New York congressman currently embarrassing his Republican colleagues signed an agreement with Brazilian prosecutors to escape prosecution in a 2008 case in which Santos was accused of forging two checks to buy clothes and shoes from a shop in a suburb of Rio de Janeiro. Santos will pay restitution to the shop owner he defrauded, as well as a fine, which will be distributed to charities. Santos had already confessed once, in writing, over a decade ago, but the case was frozen when Santos never showed up in court. What, Brazil’s never heard of conviction in absentia? In any case, as part of yesterday’s video conference, Santos confessed again to writing the fraudulent checks.
So that’s what Santos was up to the day after he pleaded not guilty in federal court to 13 charges including wire fraud, money laundering, and being a big ol’ COVID unemployment fraud cheat. Totally not a crook now, but yeah, sure, he was a crook back then, but he was only 19 at the time. Besides, he had such a promising future ahead of him, like promising he’d raise money to pay for cancer treatment for a disabled vet’s dog and then disappearing. Or promising to explain the $700,000 he magically found to loan to his own campaign. Not to mention promising to triumph in his current fraud case, and maybe also promising to hunt down the criminals who killed his mom in the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11, years before she actually came to America.
Previously!
The AP sums up the old case that Santos will now not have to worry about anymore:
Court records in Brazil, first uncovered by The New York Times, show Santos was the subject of a criminal charge for using two stolen checks to buy items at a shop in the city of Niteroi, including a pair of sneakers that he gifted to a friend. At the time, Santos would have been 19. The purchase totaled 2,144 Brazilian reais, then equal to about $1,350, according to the charge prosecutors filed in 2011.
That followed an investigation opened in 2008 and Santos’ signed confession, in which he admitted to having stolen the checkbook of his mother’s former employer from her purse and making purchases, including in the store, and recognizing the fraudulent checks as those he had signed, according to the court documents reviewed by the AP.
Despite the confession, the case was suspended in 2013 because Santos never answered subpoenas for him to show up in court. Prosecutors in Brazil reopened the case last year after Santos was elected to Congress and it was subsequently discovered that not only had Santos lied about basically everything on his résumé, he also had a long history of dumb international shenanigans including the Brazilian check scheme, the Italian Job, the French Connection, and the Great British Bake-Off.
Santos’s Brazilian attorney, Jonymar Vasconcelos, texted the AP to say that this is the last we’ll hear of this case: “What would have been the start of a case was ended today. […] As such, my client is no longer the subject of any case in Brazil.” At least, one assumes, until the bodies start washing ashore. We give it about a week until we learn there is no “Jonymar Vasconcelos,” and that it was The Joker all along.
CNN reports that Santos will pay nearly $5,000 to make the charges go away.
Of this amount, approximately $2,000 will go to the government as a fine and $2,800 to the victim, Bruno Simões, who told reporters that Santos has 30 days to make the payment via bank transfer. Simões told CNN that the government’s share of the payment will go to charity. […]
We like Mr. Simões, who clearly has a pretty good insight into the character of George Santos. He also told CNN, referring to the half-million dollars in bail Santos had to post (which was paid by other people), that the restitution wasn’t likely to make much of an impression on the powerful miscreant:
“It’s ridiculous. It’s a bargain, the guy paid $500,00 dollars in bail,” Simões told CNN after the hearing. […]
“Honestly, he must have laughed. Because 14,000 Brazilian Reais is $2,000 – that’s one suit that he wears. But despite it all, I am happy that this chapter is closed,” Simões said.
CNN added that a “source familiar with the case” said the fine was more than typical amounts charged for similar cases in Rio, so good for the prosecutors, we say. Countdown to the inevitable discovery that the fine was illegally paid out of campaign funds starts now.
And considering that Santos had to surrender his passport as part of his bail agreement on the federal charges, it’s probably just as well that he now won’t be able to claim he needs to head to Brazil to “clear some things up.”
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