Authorities in Brazil say they want to reopen a fraud investigation into George Santos. The newly-elected GOP Rep. is due to take office today.
Prosecutors in the country investigated him following the theft of a checkbook in 2008. The checkbook was used to purchase $700 of items in a clothing store.
Santos faced charges of embezzlement in a Brazilian court in 2011. However, in 2013, the case was archived after court summons went unanswered. Authorities were unable to locate Santos.
Now, thanks to a New York Times investigation, they know Santos’ location and want to look again at the case.
Related: George Santos: Gay Republican admits lies, slams journalists for “nitpicking”
According to a new story in the NY Times yesterday, prosecutors are seeking a “formal response” from Santos about the stolen checkbook.
Nathaly Ducoulombier, a spokeswoman for the Rio de Janeiro prosecutor’s office, told the Times that authorities will make a formal request to the Justice Department to notify Santos of the charges.
Scandals have rocked the out, gay lawmaker since the NY Times ran its first expose on his fictional résumé just before Christmas.
Santos admits he embellished his résumé, making up stories about his education, career and property ownership. Many unanswered questions remain, particularly over what appears to be his sudden increase in wealth over the last 3-4 years.
A former boyfriend comes forward
Santos married a woman in 2012. They divorced in 2019. Santos has previously said he came out a decade ago and is now married to a man.
Yesterday, the NY Times ran an interview with a man who claimed to be a former boyfriend of Santos.
Pedro Vilarva says he met the future politician in 2014, when he was 18 and Santos was 26.
Vilarva says they dated for a few months before Santos suggested they move in together.
Vilarva says he was delighted, as Santos seemed “sweet.” However, Vilarva soon discovered that he was often having to foot their bills.
“He used to say he would get money from Citigroup, he was an investor,” Mr. Vilarva recalled. “One day it’s one thing, one day it’s another thing. He never ever actually went to work,” he said.
In early 2015, Vilarva says Santos surprised him with tickets to Hawaii. The tickets turned out not to exist. Vilarva also says his cell phone disappeared. He suspects Santos pawned it.
This led Vilarva to put Santos’ name into a search engine. That’s when he discovered Brazilian authorities wanted to speak to his boyfriend.
“I woke up in the morning, and I packed my stuff all in trash bags, and I called my father and I left,” Vilarva said.
Today, Vilarva chalks the experience down to being young and gullible. He expressed concern about Santos becoming a lawmaker in Congress.
George Santos did not respond to any of the new allegations in the latest NY Times article.
Related: Barbra Streisand has something to say about George Santos
Santos is due to take office today. A photo on Twitter shows his nameplate already in place outside his office in DC. The silence from many senior figures about Santos’ lies has been deafening.
Rep-elect George Santos’s nameplate has been installed on his office door ahead of the start of the new Congress tomorrow pic.twitter.com/L5GXUtLpwe
— Kevin Frey (@KevinFreyTV) January 2, 2023
still_onthemark
Yeah, that was an interesting NYT interview with the ex-bf. But I’d hoped the part about Santos being “openly gay” was a lie too!
bachy
The inmates are running the asylum.
Vince
It’s funny that of all Santo’s schemes getting elected as a congressman was the first time he actually got something real. Even if getting it was based on lies.
Openminded
Have to wonder how the person he beat in the election feels.
abfab
See NYT
OPINION
GUEST ESSAY
A Con Man Is Succeeding Me in Congress Today
Jan. 3, 2023
Kangol2
@Abfab, that’s by the centrist Dem Congressman, Tom Suozzi, who retired from the seat. Suozzi thought he could be a Democrat-lite and ran for Governor, but lost the primary to incumbent Kathy Hochul, who defeated the MAGA Republican Lee Zeldin in the general election.
But Santos defeated another Democrat, Robert Zimmerman, who is pretty upset that his attempts to warn people about Santos were ignored.
abfab
Let’s see how she decorates the office. A few tips from Aaron Schock might help.
Mattster
I’m most curious about where the money came from. He loaned his campaign several hundred thousand dollars yet has no discernible job history, he claimed to own over a dozen properties but it turns out he’s living in his sister’s apartment.
Is this the new normal, where small-time grifters lie their way into congress?
inbama
Donald Trump, who made Richard Nixon look like a model of integrity, has opened the floodgates. Welcome to Banana Republicism.
Paulie P
on the news this morning.. the comment was.. why didn’t any of this surface while running for office.
Yooper
Read an article recently on same subject. The demise of local newspapers and consolidation of media in general was sighted as a significant contributor to lack of in-depth reporting on candidates. The critical races and big names are covered heavily, though not so much in other areas. It is astonishing Santos could run an entire campaign and no one fact checked.
Kangol2
It did surface. For the umpteenth time, a local Long Island newspaper uncovered many of Santos’s lies, as did the Democrat he ran against. Some local Republicons even called him “Scam-tos”! But the major NY papers, like Long Island’s Newsday, as well as the New York Times, New York Post and New York Daily News, along with most of the local TV stations, fell asleep on the job.
GlobeTrotter
I don’t understand people. If you’re an international fugitive and have lied about your ancestry, income, education and work history, then for the love of god DO NOT RUN FOR CONGRESS!
How did he imagine this story ending? As a congressman you’re one of the most visible persons on planet earth – it’s only a matter of time before the Brazilian police catch up to you, it’s only a matter of time before some reporter digs up the truth about your past. It’s only a matter of time before ex-lovers write tell-all books.
With such a criminal past, you’d have to be either extremely arrogant or extremely dumb (or both) to run for Congress.
Kangol2
He’s a Republicon and thought, like Don the Con, that he’d get away with his lies. He imagined no one would really listen to the local Long Island paper or his Democratic opponent–they didn’t during the election–and that he’d just waltz into Congress and go on about his business, whatever that was supposed to be.
gcjrandall
As I have said before, the Republican Party has become the party of lies and conspiracy theories, and yet, they don’t seem to care (not to forget mentioning white supremacy and domestic terrorism). These traitors are killing our democracy by infiltrating our government and ruining this once great nation. Hillary Clinton was absolutely right when she coined the phrase “the deplorables.” Who knew there were so many of them!
Sister Bertha Bedderthanyu
I wish whoever it was that filmed him in his Twink porn days (I’ll bet there’s at least one) come forward with the vid. This queen has former Twink star wrote all over his face. I’ll bet he has a hairless bubble butt that he loved having SLAMMED by bbc’s.
Kangol2
George Santos is a conman and scammer supreme, but it was really cruel of his fellow Republicons to ignore him and force him to sit by himself, bored to tears, as they acted out their clown show on the floor of the US House of Representatives. Couldn’t at least one of his fellow Republicons, particularly the right-wing Christian ones, have shown Not-yet-Hon. Santos some charity? LOL
Jimmynj
He looked like was put at the kid’s table at Thanksgiving. He deserves it. Loser.
Jimmynj
George Santos is a complete fraud – like a lot of the GOP. He deserves to rot in a Brazilian prison.