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George Santos goes to jail!
The disgraced former congressman would match proper in with so lots of right now’s political leaders. Nevertheless, he got here in a bit too early for a legal to flourish within the federal authorities.
On Friday, April 25, the courtroom handed down Santos’ sentence.
Along with spending 87 months behind bars, he should pay a whole lot of 1000’s in restitution.
George Santos goes to jail!
In Might of 2023, authorities indicted George Santos on costs together with wire fraud and id theft.
The accusations — to which he has since confessed in his allocution — have been that, amongst different issues, he merely took the cardboard numbers of his personal marketing campaign donors and spent that cash on private expenditures.
Think about donating to your native mayor’s marketing campaign after which discovering out that they accepted the donation, then reused the cardboard data to order issues for themselves.
That may be maniacal conduct. Additionally it is unlawful!
In 2022, a bunch of New York voters inexplicably elected Santos to Congress.
He rapidly started making headlines with clownish conduct and an uncommon string of provable, absurd lies — sure, even for a politician.
Even simply easy particulars about his private historical past turned out to be complete fabrications.
The thought of a routine liar and a compulsive legal unintentionally conning their manner into Congress sounds just like the plot of a 2010-era USA drama-slash-comedy, but it surely was actual life. For a short while.
Lower than one yr into his first (and, allow us to hope, solely) time period in workplace, he was expelled from Congress amidst a federal investigation into his legal exercise.
The ‘witch hunt’ declare didn’t age effectively
In Might of 2023, Santos referred to as the investigation, costs, and then-fresh indictment a “witch hunt.”
Nevertheless, somewhat over a yr later, he pleaded responsible to aggravated id theft and wire fraud as a part of a plea deal.
It’s exceptional and uncommon to see politicians at his degree really face actual authorized penalties for his or her crimes.
Notably, Donald Trump’s conviction final yr had no impact, as too many events lacked the resolve to totally implement the regulation.
On Friday, April 25, the courtroom sentenced Santos to 87 months in a federal jail. That comes out to over 7 years.
He additionally should pay over $370,000 in restitution. Santos additionally should forfeit sure belongings. His complete loss is wanting extra like $580,000 with that in thoughts.
It’s price noting that he was dealing with a compulsory minimal of two years in jail for the id theft facet of his crimes.
In gentle of his legal exercise (and, one could assume, the deep violation of a Congressman committing these crimes), the courtroom clearly felt that greater than two years was applicable.
He has really requested solitary confinement
Whereas Santos would slot in effectively with lots of the worst folks working issues on the federal degree right now, he feels nice trepidation about how much less rich criminals will react to him.
TMZ reviews that Santos appeared on (the place else however) The Matt Gaetz Present on (the place else however) One America Information Community forward of his sentencing.
There, he admitted that he has requested to spend all seven years of his sentence in solitary confinement. Apparently, he’s underneath the impression that he’s identified for a robust anti-gang stance.
(Only for the report … it appears doubtless that his wire fraud costs won’t land him at a facility that sees a lot in the way in which of gang violence. Solely time will inform, we suppose)
