Sashay Away, George!

In honor of of George Santo's brief (but storied) stint in Congress, I thought I would review his greatest hits:

Election Cash: Santos spent campaign contributions  on personal purchases at Hermes, Sephora, and OnlyFans.

ID Theft: Santos stole donors’ identities and made charges on their credit cards.

 

Holocaust Hoax: Santos said in a campaign video that his “grandparents survived the Holocaust.” Several months later, speaking with the Jewish News Syndicate, he said, “I’m very proud of my grandparents’ story,” which he claimed included “fleeing Hitler.”  That was all bullshit--  genealogy records indicate that his grandparents were born in Brazil.

 

Niece was kidnapped, as retribution by Chinese communists:  In an interview with The New York Times that was published in October 2023, Santos said that his young niece had been kidnapped from a playground in Queens, in what he implied may have been retaliation for his public comments about the Chinese Communist Party.  A complete fabrication.

Mom was a 9/11 victim: Santos’s campaign website claimed that his mother “was in her office in the South Tower on September 11,” adding that she “passed away a few years later when she lost her battle to cancer.” On July 12, 2021, he wrote on Twitter: “9/11 claimed my mothers life.”  NBC reported that  “public employment records show only one employer for Santos’ mother--- Imports by Rose, a company based in Queens that shuttered in 1994.” There’s also the awkward matter of documents indicating she was in Brazil on the day of the attacks.  Oops!

Assassination attempt:  In December 2022, Santos told a Brazilian podcast: “We have already suffered an attempt on my life, an assassination attempt, a threatening letter, having to have the police, a police escort standing in front of our house.” He also claimed to have been mugged, in broad daylight, on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 55th Street.  Yeah, right.

 

Volleyball star:  One of the first lies Santos got caught in was claiming he had graduated from Baruch College with degrees in economics and finance in 2010, a college he did not even attend.  Even more hilarious is the that Santos told multiple people that he was the “star” of the Baruch volleyball team.  He double down on that fanciful tale years later, saying:  That he attended Baruch on a volleyball scholarship; that his team "slayed” the Yale squad; that he could have played basketball but went with volleyball because “it was easier”; and that he “sacrificed both…knees” and “got very nice knee replacements…from playing volleyball” because “that’s how serious I took the game”  Lies upon lies-- according to the New York Post, the Baruch men’s volleyball team “never played Yale during the period Santos claimed to have attended school there.”

 

That Ponzi scheme:  Santos’s employment history (which  did not actually see him working at Goldman Sachs or Citigroup) included time at a financial firm called Harbor City, which the SEC accused of running a Ponzi scheme and was later shut down.

Brazil Bandit: In 2008, Santos was charged with fraud by Brazilian prosecutors for stealing the checkbook of a man his mother was working for and then spending nearly $700 using a stolen checkbook and a fake name. In an interview after many of his lies came to light, Santos insisted: “I am not a criminal here—not here or in Brazil or any jurisdiction in the world.” Prosecutors in Brazil have said they plan to re-charge him with fraud.

 

Roommate Robber:  Ex-roommates of Santos (who knew him as Anthony Devolder, a name he was going by as recently as 2019) have said he stole numerous items from them, including a Burberry scarf that he then wore to a “Stop the Steal” rally.

 

Mugged for his Rent:  Santos gave a sworn statement! that he was mugged while attempting to deliver a check for back rent owed to his Queens landlord. Shockingly, there is no record of this happening.

 

A homeless vet and his dying dog: In 2016, Santos (then going by Devolder) connected with a homeless veteran whose service dog had developed a life-threatening tumor and needed surgery that cost $3,000.  Santos/Devolder set up a GoFundMe for the dog and, appealing to donors, wrote: “Dear all, When a veteran reaches out to ask for help, how can you say no?”  After the funds were raised, Santos “disappeared” with the money and the dog died in January 2017. This has got to be the absolute worst.

Exploiting the Pulse shooting:  Santos claimed that he’d “lost four employees” in the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando.  Not surprisingly, this is not actually true.

 

The Kevin McCarthy impersonator: In January 2022, the Post reported that a staffer working for Santos’s election bid would call rich donors and pretend to be Kevin McCarthy’s chief of staff to raise money. 

 

Modeling Career:  In an interview with Curbed, one of Santo's former roommates said he was regularly fed a deluge of lies-- including that Santos (who went by Devolder at the time) was a model who was set to appear in Vogue. Now Georgie boy is walking the runway of shame!