Former US Representative. George Santos is expected to plead guilty to several charges his federal fraud casesaid a person familiar with the matter.
Santos, a Republican from New York, is expected to enter the plea at a court hearing scheduled for Monday on Long Island, the person said.
The person could not publicly discuss the details of the confession and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Messages were left seeking comment from Santos and three of the former congressman’s lawyers.
The trial was scheduled for Monday afternoon after prosecutors and Santos’ lawyers jointly requested one on Friday. They also requested and received a postponement of certain pre-trial deadlines.
The news came just weeks before jury selection was set to begin on Sept. 9. Santos has previously pleaded not guilty to a number of financial crimes, including lying to Congress about his wealth, collecting unemployment benefits while working and using campaign contributions to pay for personal expenses such as designer clothing.
The charges Santos faces include wire fraud, theft of public funds, money laundering and aggravated identity theft.
Prosecutors recently told the judge that the trial could last three weeks because they expected to summon at least three dozen witnesses, including some victims of Santos’ alleged crimes.
Santos has previously maintained his innocence and called the investigation a “witch hunt.” Prosecutors called those allegations “baseless” in a recent court filing. But in December, when prosecutors said negotiations for a guilty plea were ongoing, Santos said in an interview at the time that a deal was “not off the table.”
When asked if he was afraid of going to prison, he said: “I think everyone should be afraid of going to prison. It’s not a nice place and I definitely want to work hard to avoid that as much as possible.”
Earlier this week, Judge Joanna Seybert said rejected Santos requested that potential jurors fill out a written questionnaire to gauge their opinion of him. His lawyers argued in court filings that this was necessary because “Santos has essentially already been found guilty in the court of public opinion.”
Government lawyers had also sought to admit into evidence some of the lies Santos had spread during his campaign. Before he was elected to represent parts of Queens and Long Island in 2022, he falsely claimed that he had graduated from both New York University and Baruch College and had worked at top Wall Street firms.
Two of Santos’ campaign aides have already pleaded guilty to crimes related to the former congressman’s campaign. Last October, his former treasurer, Nancy Marks pleaded guilty charged with fraud and implicated Santos in a plot to falsify his campaign finance reports with a bogus loan and bogus donors. A lawyer for Marks said at the time that his client would be willing to testify against Santos if called upon, saying she had been “psychologically seduced” by Santos.
A month later, Sam Miele, a former fundraiser for Santos, pleaded guilty to wire fraud in federal court, admitting to posing as a high-ranking congressional aide while raising campaign funds for Santos.
The New York Republican was excluded from Congress in December after an ethics investigation found “overwhelming evidence” that he had broken the law and exploited his public position for his own benefit.
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Associated Press writer Michael R. Sisak contributed to this report.
