George Santos indictment: Congressman pleads not guilty to 13 counts
The freshman representative pleaded not guilty to 13 criminal counts.
Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., has been indicted on 13 criminal counts, including seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds and two counts of making materially false statements to the House of Representatives, federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York said Wednesday.
The embattled congressman, who was taken into custody Wednesday on Long Island, New York, pleaded not guilty on all counts at his arraignment then was released on bond.
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Santos received unemployment while working: Docs
Among the accusations in the charging documents are allegations that Santos applied for unemployment benefits during the pandemic, falsely claiming to have been unemployed since March 2020, according to prosecutors.
He collected money from then until April 2021, "when Santos was working and receiving a salary on a near-continuous basis and during his unsuccessful run for Congress," referring to his first run for the job, which he lost. In total, prosecutors say he collected more than $24,000 in benefits.
He was actually being paid a $120,000 salary as regional director of an investment firm at the time, according to prosecutors.
Santos to plead not guilty, was taken into custody off-site
Santos left Washington, D.C., on Tuesday and drove up to New York to surrender.
Before leaving, Santos met with House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy's staff and informed them that he would be charged.
He's expected to plead not guilty, sources told ABC News.
Santos met with the FBI at an off-site location Wednesday morning and surrendered to authorities.
Santos accused of cheating man out of funding for dog
In one story of alleged misdeeds, as ABC News previously reported, the FBI contacted a Navy veteran, Richard Osthoff, about a GoFundMe campaign Santos established to raise money for the veteran's service dog.
Santos established the GoFundMe account under the auspices of a charity, Friends of Pets United, and raised $3,000 to help Osthoff pay for surgery to remove a tumor from the dog, sources said.
But Osthoff told ABC News Santos did not come through with the money and ignored text messages about it. The dog, Sapphire, subsequently died.
These allegations are not included in Wednesday's indictment, however.
Santos insisted earlier this year he would serve out his term despite mounting controversies surrounding his past falsehoods, scrutiny of his finances, and multiple investigations.
Santos, who has admitted to fabricating parts of his biography, has denied any criminal wrongdoing.
Investigators focused on financial disclosures: Sources
Investigators have been focusing on Santos' financial disclosures, according to sources.
In a series of campaign disclosure amendments filed in January, Santos marked two loans that he had previously reported as loans from himself -- $500,000 from March 2022 and $125,000 from October 2022 -- as not from "personal funds from the candidate."
In a previous version of his campaign disclosure, the $500,000 was reported as a loan from George Anthony Devolder-Santos, with a checked box indicating it was from "personal funds of the candidate." But in an amendment to that report filed earlier this year, that box was left unchecked.
Santos, who was elected in November to represent New York's 3rd Congressional District, has been under mounting scrutiny over his finances -- with 2022 disclosures indicating millions in assets after previously disclosing less than $60,000 in income in 2020.
-ABC News' Soo Rin Kim