Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Zaren Hey, I wasn't.
How are you today?
I'm very well refreshed.
Are you awake?
Yeah, totally look at me awake. Yeah, my eyes are awake.
I'm not listen pow, but listen, old bean. It's ridiculous.
Oh girl, do I it's a little navel gaisy, but I gotta say, yeah, I can't read apparently. Oh really, yeah, that's ridiculous either. It's really late in my life to learn that I can't read. But I can't read because last week I was telling you about those baseball players look exactly alike, okay, right, and the red Gingers and their name, last name was Figel. I got that part right.
First name not Brad. What is Brady? Apparently? I read enough letters like brad Borough whatever, you know, it doesn't matter. I call him Brah so he is. I apologize to both the Brady Figles.
Okay, and they're notwhere, not all of them.
There's a couple of bigod exemptions. You know who you are, you know what you did.
They're days.
Yeah, so there you go. And then also one of our listeners, cat named Richard Moore, wrote in and said, uh that you know when Sara tells Elizabeth a bunch of ridiculous in this episode about that one. Did those two minor league ballplayers ever get their respective parents together just for fun?
Oh?
Oh, not that way. I think like to have them like sorted out, like where were you on that night?
You know? But genetically they're not the same, right they said, what if it's like but yeah, get the parents together and find out if it's like some sort of government.
Experiences are I was like the idea that God only has so many faces and just like I got here, you go, you get the there you go.
Ridiculous. That is ridiculous. Do you want to know what else is ridiculous? Yes? Please filming cameos?
What what.
This is?
Ridiculous? Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous caper's hes and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free. And you know what ridiculous?
I know you heard that you did?
Sweet baby hotcakes? Have I got one for you? Today's are really my goodness, especially sweet ones. Con artists scammer. Yeah. I love con artists. Yes, And part of the thing about them is that they're always they're shameless. Yes, they will say absolutely whatever it takes to get what they want.
To move forward.
Yes, right, here is a case study in just that. Really like saying what people want to hear, knowing an audience and working it and then being super audacious in how you take and use the scammed money and power.
Huh So this is like a Mount Rushmore level scammer.
Yes, I should not, but I love this guy.
Ooh conflict.
He's terrible and I deeply, deeply disagree with him about pretty much everything.
That's what I feel about Pablo Escobar, right. See, I have a begrudging respect for him. He's horrible, horrendous. I would never say and stand by anything he's ever done. I would apologize anything to anyone who's ever hurt, but I will still sit there and go I love the Yeah, that's an idea.
He he's so entertaining and he's so messy, and his wings have been clipped, so he's not the danger that he once was.
Okay, Saren, I want.
To tell you all about disgraced former congress person George Sam.
Oh my god. We're going there. We're going there. We're going to the mountaint. You're taking to the.
Mountain, Santos baby, I want to.
Tell you I was already getting rare.
Okay. He was born George Anthony Devald Santos July twenty second, nineteen eighty eight.
Divald. So he really is Brazilian. Got one of them German names. Slid in there, sneaky in Queen's.
He was born in Queens.
Oh, that's his family is spider Man's from there, Peterborough.
His family's from Brazil. As you said, they're all immigrants who came to this country looking for a better life. They took hard jobs. His mom was a housekeeper, cook, nanny. His dad was one of your people, a house painter.
Oh yes, good people, salt to.
The earth folks. Right. His childhood was rough. They were super super poor.
The cowboys of construction.
Right. They lived in terrible conditions in Jackson Heights, Queen's. But his mom did everything that she could to still get George, Like the little things that would make him feel like a regular kid.
Oh so, like.
Toys and stuff when they had absolutely nothing. She would scrape together make sure he had like nice Yeah. Yeah, his dad took off, but his mom just kept plugging away, like doing the best for her two kids. He has a sister. So this hard scrabble life put George in positions of having to make choices like to be truthful or to tell a lie.
Ah, those types of choices to crime.
Or not to cryme ah. Yes, yeah, and he didn't always make the right choices, No, our Georgie, our little Georgie. In my research, it became apparent that George told the world lies, created falsehoods that were just the life that he wanted to live.
Oh so he's a fabulous of his own telling. He's not trying to impress you, He's trying to almost impress himself exactly.
And it seems it seems like he almost couldn't control himself, like he lied about everything, and he uses and use and uses his lies to manipulate situations and get ahead, like he's always hustling.
Okay, he has no relationship to truth? Is that none unless forced upon.
Him, right, and even then then he's like, no, that's not get behind me safe.
Like he did.
He didn't graduate from high school. He got a ged, but he told everyone that he went to this really prestigious and expensive New York school horuce Man, Okay, and he did not.
It seems like it's small enough and be hard to like get by if anybody's ever been there, be like, man, you aren't a man.
Well, and then the thing is, though, is it like even when faced with all this evidence, when people are like, we went through one hundred and twenty eight years of their yearbooks, like they searched their database, they went through records. No, no, no, Divulder like, yeah, you're not a time traveler. No iterations of your name. He's like, well, then I went there.
What's the problem? Talk to them about theeper.
So he would tell tales about his mom being this major Republican donor, like like canvassing for Rudy Giuliani.
Actually a major Democratic donor.
No, she she just was like not politically. She had like shaky immigration status.
Oh right right, and he's not going to be out there going knocking on doors.
He said that she was like this high powered financier in an office in the World Trade Center. I mean she was surrounded by wealth in her job because she was a housekeeper to all these like fortune five hundred families.
Wow. So she was close enough for him to observe it so he could speak knowledgeably about it.
That's exactly it he said. He graduated from Baruk College with a degree in economics and finance, and then he also had an MBA from NYU and Nope on both super he was like flamboyant guy. He is a flamboyant guy. He married as a young young man. He married a really beautiful Brazilian woman and people were like, huh, I didn't think the women didn't think that what was interested. A lot of people thought maybe it was like a beard because he had such a conservative family. The relationship
didn't last long. It was like pretty much concluded to be a citizenship thing for her, for her to get her a green card.
So it worked out for both of them. Yeah, glationship and so like he.
Wasn't out per se, he just wasn't telling. But he like he wouldn't talk about the whole marriage.
It wasn't actual. There was no romance. He's not like, okay, no.
But so he went back and forth to Brazil to see his family, and a lot of times when he was there he would go by the name Anthony Divolder. He told people he met there that his dad was like this super rich guy in New York. One of the times he was there, two thousand and five, he participated in this absolutely raucous Pride celebration in drag And there's this book called The Fabuloust, which is interesting. You should you know, describe him as such by Mark Chuisano.
It's all about George sure, and in it the author tells the story of George at this Pride parade and how he got interviewed by a TV crew. Quote the interviewee, who is indeed Santos, according to friends and ex friends of the future Congressman, has the confidence of youth he's not yet twenty, the breathlessness of a party, of nighttime, of being one among many and not alone. He is far from Queen's He is unfettered by familial authority, figures
and restrictions. He revels in this permissive, affirming culture, just a nice change in general, from the same old, same old atmosphere back home. He nonchalantly grabs a pair of sunglasses off a less than fully clad man next to him, dawns them the sunglasses with the explanation that they're required since he fudged his makeup. He lights up when a
microphone enters the frame. True to current form, Santos also gets in some self promotion about his presentations or performances at the big rio drag clubs of the era, like Cascadura or even La Bois. Then the interview ends with Santos's hand skimming smoothly across the semi bare chest of the formerly sunglassed man us for a TV ready accessory. It's a beautiful night in Knitroy. It is a beautiful time to be uninhibited, to be alive. So you have
this young guy living it up best life. This will come back to haunt him later, but in that moment, he's living it up. No responsibilities, just dreams. But so many contradictions. Like he was doing drag quite a bit then, and it's something that he later denied.
Was he really at boy in those big drag places.
That I don't know if that was, but I know that there are people in Brazil who confirm, Oh yeah, he brought like expensive materials from New York down to Brazil that people couldn't get to make costumes. Now, he, you know, posts on social media about how there are only two genders and is very gender traditionalists.
Pretty far in the needle fliph.
But the thing is his whole family were big Bolscenaro fans in Brazil.
I could see that Latin American politicis he was, even though Bolsonnaro total homophobe.
But it's the kind of contradiction we'll see a lot of with George.
Yeah, their idea of conservative politics hasn't quite a line with ours, you know. I mean, it may seem like it, but it's a different but like the you know, No, I'm not trying to not excusing Bolsonaro or saying that he's not I'm saying, but I mean that the people who choose the people that they're voting for, they're not thinking the I'm a Democrat or a Republican the way that we might think of those categories.
I just think that if someone was so just violently homophobic, like you would think he would.
Say, you would think yeah. But That's what I'm trying to say, is that they look at the material politics different, right.
Right, So Georgia, there's stuff in Brazil. He stole a check book and committed check fraud. That was in two thousand and eight. He confessed to the crime, but then he fled the country and he was actually a fugitive for that until twenty twenty three from Brazil and George, yeah, back in New York though.
So now I can't go home or ye back exactly, and so.
He's back in New York. He keeps plugging along. He had a gig at the Dish Network call center, okay, and he lied to all these people there about how he came from this wealthy Brazilian family and they're like, well, then why are you working in this call center?
Either way, does your family not like it?
He got another job working for a company called Hotels Pro not really sure what that is, some sort of booking technology thing. He actually moved to Florida for a little bit and worked for them there. Then he went back to New York and he got a gig at link Bridge Investors, some investment fund firm. He would later say that he was a vice president there, but he was not. He was a freelancer who worked on the mission.
In January of twenty twenty, he got a job with Harbor City Capital and that's a Florida based investment firm. He was their New York regional director and he told people that he was managing one and a half billion dollars in funds for Harbor City and with a fixed yield of twelve percent and an internal rate of return of twenty six percent. Wow, does that sound shady?
No, Elizabeth, that sounds completely above board.
Thereon, it was shady, this is but it wasn't all George on that one. The SEC would go on later to file a civil suit against Harbor City the whole company for running a seventeen million dollars ponzi scheme.
Oh so they're all George Santa. He got a job with a Yeah, it's I know, real, recognized, real, exactly, fake recognized, fake, want to put it.
Luckily they let him go from the from the company before the chips hit the fan on that one.
Oh so, but it was he left.
They got rid of him because he was involved in something else, something that was taking up more of his time. Was that politics, baby?
Oh right, we had to get to that.
So so George had announced in November of twenty nineteen that he was running for New York's third congressional district as the Republican candidate. This is like Long Island, Northeastern Queens.
It's a pretty Democrat, yeah, exactly, district.
Affluence su Bourbon voters.
But they're like, why run for that district.
Yeah, basically, his opponent, Thomas Swosey, incumbent Democrat, was like a moderate voice for the Dems running for his third term. So this is just like this is kamikaze mission.
So George, somebody had to run.
Why why not me? So George, he runs on this conservative Republican platform. He's all about Donald Trump and MAGA, lower taxes, hardline immigration policies, uh huh, support for Israel, opposition to abortion, and LGBTQ plus curriculum in schools. And I don't forget at this point he's totally out as a gay man. But whatever he had come out of nowhere, nobody knew, really knew him, and he wasn't deeply entrenched
in local GOP politics. So party officials later said, well, you know, we're like, no one's interested in running, Like you said, like no one wants to do it. COVID's going on, you know, But here there's George. He hands in this phony resume full of all the information that they wanted to hear. He told him the story they wanted. Oh, so he goes hard on the campaign trail. He really
pushed like this amazing background he'd created for himself. He's not the son of struggling immigrants with shaky legal status. He's not the guy who struggled and worked in call centers. No, he's like, look, I have this degree. I you know, I have an MBA. He added some spice in there too. He's like, I worked for Goldman Sachson City Group as a Wall Street executive. He said that he was Jewish and descended from Holocaust survivors.
Wow.
He said that as a finance bro he lost four employees at the Pulse night club shooting in twenty sixteen.
Oh wow, if it's a tragedy, he's attaching himself.
Uh huh. He said that he ran an animal rescue charity that saved twenty five hundred animals.
Wow. Did he lose both of his parents and two step parents in the nine to eleven fell?
Well? Is there? So he said all these things. No one bats an eyelash. They just said wow. Cool. He said like, look, I don't make a whole lot of money fifty five grand a year, and it's based on like commission based work.
He was not going hard federal election.
Uh huh. Oh wow, not going hard on all his big baller Wall Street claims. At this point, his campaign raised about three hundred thousand dollars, which is like a pretty small amount for a New York district that's competitive. Election night, November third, twenty twenty, votes are tallied, he loses by twelve percentage points. That's actually closer than everyone.
Yeah, totally. I would have thought it's been like twenty So the Republicans.
Are like, wait, we may have a fighting chance for a rematch in two years, twenty twenty two. But George wasn't looking to twenty twenty two. He was living full on twenty twenty because he refused to accept his loss. He said that the vote totals had been manipulated, and he started pushing for a recount. She night cost money, and he figured he would be like, you know, half of the Democratic ballots are bogus, and the National Republicans are like, we're not going to fund this, but we
like the cut of your jim, the energy. I love this. Did you did you know that he went to Trump's Save America rally at the in DC on January sixth.
I'm just going to go ahead and say no, I did not.
Yeah, now you know I told you I disagree with him to my core. Yeah, he's quoted in all these places as saying that, like Trump was energized, gave a great speech, was quote at his full awesomeness. And we know what happened after that quote great speech, right, this
is violent mob. It was just tourists, Darren insurrectionist mob attacked the capital, disrupt the counting of the electoral votes to formalize Trump's loss, called for the death of the vice president, took dumps on desks, the bad pizza party, very bad pizza party, like the worst you could go to pretty much. So later George told people that he was only at the speech and not the building, and he called January sixth a quote sad and dark day.
And then he's like, yeah, you know, Biden, Biden won Georgia. So I told the local press, like they they barely investigated George's background, our personal claims.
Yeah, he's not going to win.
The Democrats did no OPO.
Research on again, why I waste my money safe?
Yeah, so his secrets never came out at this and then come to find out, redistricting slightly changed New York's third congressional district and it made it more favorable to the GOP, and George used this momentum and his connections from his twenty twenty run to launch a second campaign in twenty twenty two, and between twenty twenty and twenty twenty two, he drastically inflated his resume, his income, his personal narrative, Like he doubled down on every light I
ever told and was just like, look, they didn't check, then they're not going to check. Now, let's take a break and we come back from these ads. I'm going to tell you about this twenty twenty two race, Zarin.
Dude, I was reading some about George Santos on the break. I did not know that he invented the Corvette Lasagna and also mondays he did. Yeah, yeah, it's really amazing.
It's amazing, George Santos. George Santos. He lost, like we said, the New York third Congressional District race in twenty twenty. Do you remember how he'd been working for Harbor City and that he left to work on the campaign. Around that time, he founded a company called Devaulter Organization.
The Devauter Group.
Yes, and although he was living in New York, the company was registered in Florida, and on financial disclosure forms. He called it a quote capital introduction consulting firm. What does that even mean?
Introduction consulting.
Show me the money firm.
I'll introduce the money. This is money money, say holo.
Hello. When he was eyeballing the new run in twenty twenty two because the incumbent wasn't going to run again, all of a sudden, his reported personal income changed. None of his fifty grand a year stuff anymore. He said that he earned between three and a half to eleven and a half million dollars from the Devauld organization.
It's quite a spread.
That's a come up. Yeah, from fifty grand to that.
Look at him.
He said he was the sole owner and managing member of the company and that they managed eighty million dollars in assets. It's a big organization.
I get a job, George.
How many employees? How many employees do you think? He had?
Seven named George Santos.
That's right, zero, yeah, yeah. Fun fact. The company's mailing address was an apartment owned by Harbor City's chief technology officer. Oh's cozy, so here we are. Twenty twenty two, George announced his candidacy for New York's third, he is running unopposed for the Republican primary, and he secured that nomination no problem. Remember the district was redrawn and the playing field to change. So also, the Devaulter organization lent his campaign more than seven hundred thousand.
Dollars, Oh his own.
Whe Where did it come from?
Yeah, who's see what money lined?
Yeah?
Shady. So with his campaign strategy.
Like that money was real, the seven hundred thousand dollars, that wasn't an account that was like people saw it, there's scrow.
Paid, it's it's I don't think it was real. I think it was just all shells moving around, okay, like juice it. So everyone else wants to give him money.
Yeah, I wonder if if you wanted to go buy some diet cokes with this, I.
Don't think you can. I don't think you could buy Maybe you could buy one, okay. Yeah. So he his his strategy was like I'm a successful businessman and I have a compelling personal story.
Who doesn't Who doesn't?
You know, he's still he stuck with I went to Baruch College. He said, he worked at Goldman Sachson City Group had that successful company, the Divaulter Organization that just in two years time Shazam.
Saving all the animals, twenty five hundred animals.
It'd like to be a successful, solid candidate in twenty twenties America as a Republican. You gotta bend the maganee. Yeah, and he was all about it. He did fundraisers at mar A Lago and it's like his dream scenario. It's tacky as hell. It's filled with rich folks, everyone lying their asses off. It's perfect.
How do you I don't imagine you do? But like, how does that work? Do you? Like give them a ten percent of the cut and they let you come in and run with.
It's got to be where like part of it goes to the National Committee, and yeah, I think they take a take a cut of it. He went hard on a few issues, despite masking up and getting vaccinated himself. He was anti mask and anti VAC. He called abortion barbaric and compared it to slavery. Okay, He was against any LGBTQ plus content in schools. He called that grooming. Really yeah, He said police brutality was a quote made
up concept. He was anti Black Lives Matter, calling it Marxists, and for the love of God, I wish that each person who uses the term Marxist be required to actually read Marx because it's so off the mark and infuriating anyway. So he's like playing the Maga Greatest Hits for his constituents, and they're eating it up, they're loving it. And he looked around at fellow politicians and he saw that lying didn't matter anymore.
It's just what you did.
This is from the book The Fabulous Quote. In the Trump era, not only was there little penalty for conspiracy mongering or outright lying, it could actually be a draw election. Misinformation was just part of showing your colors, as Santos had done quite publicly at the pre January sixth rally in Freedom Plaza when he shouted to the crowd about his election getting stolen. It became one of his favorite canards.
This habitual liar, there were many flavors. He could be flippant about supposedly almost winning, or he might be very dire, as when he claimed that he beat his twenty twenty opponent on election night for fourteen days until the ballots never stopped coming in. He said it on podcasts and
in public. He even touched on it to people posing as Republicans, as when he told an undercover Democratic tracker that yes, he quote wrote a nice check for a law firm to help out some of the January sixth patriots. Was it real? Who cares? Democrats clutch their pearls? But the right wing loved it. The crazier he talked, the more he aligned himself with Magaworld, and there were supporters to be found there. It's just you know, it's it's.
It was just like all like it's not just transactional but just straight up not in the monetary senti usury, but usury in the sense of like, oh I can do this is good for me. So even the crowd that Magapara's doing like yeah, we'll take this gay Brazilian dude becase he says hateful stuff against the people, say hateful stuff, No, raise more money. Yeah.
And so, as with most campaigns, George his campaign commissioned a vulnerability study and he was all about it, but like.
His own vulnerabilities. Yeah, but as it.
Was going on, he tried to cancel the contract. Like they started up like Okay, we're going to work on it.
He's like, oh wait, hold on, hold on, you're finding too much stuff.
Yeah, and it was for good reason because like, who buddy, it was not good.
None of this is true.
Some of the staff was like, you got to drop out of the race. It was that bad. So we had like the fraudulent Academy.
We're going to tell you.
We're going to tell the involvement in a company running a Ponzi scheme. He had multiple evictions, he had a suspended driver's license, he was openly gay but married to a woman in a possibly fraudulent green card marriage. His team they called this emergency conference to like discuss the results of the study, and they told George you have a choice. You can step down from the race and maintain your dignity. He's like, what dignity? Or you can
keep running. Give the Democrats the chance to put you on blast and ruin you. And he was like, listen, I'll get you all the diplomas that never happened, by the way, and I'll think about what you've said here today.
I'm really going to think about it, sit.
On it for a bit. So then a couple days later he comes back to the group and he's like, you know what, I'm gonna stick with it. It's not that bad, don't worry about it. And then most of them quit on the spot. They're like, I want no stink on me for name. Yeah. So like are swirling, but his campaign just keeps chugging along, according to the New York Times quote, Around that time, mister Santos began attracting the suspicion of a pair of friends and potential
donors active in New York Republican circles. Mister Santos claimed to one of them, Kristin Bianco, to have secured the endorsement of former President Donald J. Trump when he had not. That prompted her to express concerns about mister Santos to plugged in Republicans, including a allociates of representative at least Stephonic of New York, one of mister Santos's biggest early backers,
whose top political aid was assisting his campaign. Later, miss Bianco and her friend became suspicious that they could not verify his work history were just so tired of being duped. Miss Bianco texted mister Santos in early twenty twenty two after he refused her request to produce his resume. Mister Santos wrote back that he found the request quote a bit invasive, as it's something very personal. You're running for office, and you're like, that's per I can't tell you my resume.
You put yourself here, sir, No one asked.
You the soon, like the Rays starts becoming more high profile thanks to the redistricting, Oh right now, it was too late for the Republican doubters to swap in someone solid, and the Democrats they didn't have the time or the money or the people power to do a deep dive on George at least that's their excuse. So their opposition research up a bunch of red flags, but they were
never chased down. And when they went to the press with some of the red flags, they too said they were short on time and resources to chase down the story. Like that's great, but you know what, we got a lot of other stuff or sorry, I have no one in Ai hasn't come all the way into the newsroom yet, So we have like one dude at a computer in interviews and meetings, like he stuck to the lies from the fore.
You have to that's the move.
Oh yeah, and again he said that his grandparents had fled Jewish persecution during World War Two and he was a proud American Jew. He claimed that he founded and operated a tax exempt annimal rescue organization that just also happened to not exist. He started talking about how he owned multiple properties, but like records later show, he didn't own any real estate. September of twenty.
Two, checked Minecraft, you know what, or like sims a lot of places. They you got to think broadly.
September twenty twenty two, just before the election, the North Shore Leader newspaper started looking into his history and they reported on his employment and his financials. But it was a small local paper, which is the backbone of journalism in this country totally, and so no one paid attention.
When you said north Star, I'm like, why would the Hawaiian paper care about it? Was really that's raird for local news. They're really expansive covering in the New York third district.
So like, no one's looking it didn't have legs on a bigger stage to get it thought. So George, he's like riding that Republican momentum, loving it. This Republican surge contributed to increased turnout and then all and that gave support to down ballot candidates like Santos.
His voting are and they're like, okay, yeah, right down.
The ticket exactly. So the general election November eight, twenty twenty two, Santos won the seat with fifty three point seventy four percent of the vote. That's a lot, and he beat this other guy, you know, forty six point twenty two percent. So after the election, the press finally picked up on the story that he was a straight up liar.
Like once he's won after the fact, that's a big move these days in politics.
Uh huh. So December nineteenth, twenty twenty two, New York Times reports on his lies. His lawyer denies everything, but like the ball's rolling, George hadn't even been sworn in yet and the press is just all over him. So then New York Attorney General Letitia James, Oh yeah, she announced an investigation had been opened due to his suspicious financial dealings. December twenty sixth, twenty twenty two, he broke his silence and he told the New York Post quote,
I'm not a fraud. I'm not a criminal who defrauded the entire country and made up this fictional character and ran for Congress that's exactly.
What you said. What you are just we couldn't say it.
So every day his opposite day with George, Oh my god, every sounds. So he did tell the Post that he didn't actually graduate from college. He's like, he got me there and I didn't work for Goldman Sachs or City Group. But like that's it.
Those are the whole those are it?
Sure? George? Oh, and then like about being Jewish, he said that during the campaign he was a quote proud American Jew and also called himself a Latino Jew. But George then like had to confirm, actually, I'm Catholic.
I'm a Catholic Jew.
And they're like, what are you trying to claim Jewish heritage. He's like, no, no, no, see quote. I believe we are all Jewish at the end because Jesus Christ is Jewish. And if you believe in Jesus and we're all brothers in Christ, I mean it just ends what I need.
During December argument for where they got more pizza and like a sleep overnight and because we're all Jewish because Jesus is Jewish and pizza.
Because December twenty sixth, twenty twenty two, he gives an interview, and he said, quote, I never claimed to be Jewish. I'm the Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background, I said I was jew Ish. That is top notch. He's jew Ish. It is so beautiful.
I think he'd been an old Andy Kindler line. I think so.
He would later say that he had a DNA test that confirmed his Jewish ancestry. But you aren't allowed to see it. It's personal. Yeah, I can tell you what you can because I'm you can't see the DNA, but you know you can see zaren closure out. Yeah, I want you to picture it.
I cannot wait.
It's January third, twenty twenty three. You are tech support at the US Capitol Building. In fact, you're the director of Audio Resources, meaning you make sure the microphones work. The system is pretty good. You keep things tight. All the wires are color coded and expertly breeded and organized. You are behind the scenes of the House floor keeping an eye on the mic system. The House of Representatives is set to elect a new Speaker of the House.
Kevin McCarthy, the previous Minority leader, should be a shoe in as soon as he's crowned. Speaker, then they can start swearing in all the new members. You've heard rumbles that Matt Gates and Marjorie Taylor Green, whom you refer to as Beavis and butt Head, much to your staff's delight, are up to something not surprising whatever. You just watch the soundboard and adjust some gain dials, volume, reverb, pedal effects.
You'd have a crazy setup back there. So, looking out over the source of the mumbled conversations with occasional laughs and coughs punctuating the tense air, you peek out at the floor and you watch his Gates and Taylor Green huddle in confab with other representatives. McCarthy works the room, shaking hands and padding backs, and then you see him the big news item, George Santos. He looks so out
of place, so uncomfortable. He's tried to cozy up to Gates and Taylor Green and standing just beyond their orbit. He looks like a scared, nerdy kid at his first day at a new high school, trying to befriend the school bullies. But now he sits alone. You have no inclination to warn him or feel any sense of pity or care. See you take Washington and the federal government. Seriously, this is sacred ground. Your belief is in this great
country of ours, this beautiful experiment. You revere this building and the history it holds, both good and bad. You can live in the discomfort of shameful past and political disagreements, but you can't live in the discomfort of watching people denigrate what you love. And lying your way into office is denigrating the institution. It's insulting his voters and his peers, every citizen. You may only handle the audio here, but you know you are an important part of a beautiful
and flawed machine, the US federal government. The government isn't something outside of the people. It is the people. Believe in the country, respect the country, and you take umbrage to this rising tide of carnival barkers and crass opportunists. They have no decorum. You, Zarin, are a dying breed. The vote begins for the next Speaker.
Of the House.
Role is called, and alphabetically each representative stands to announce their vote. McCarthy, Jeffreys, Biggs, We're into the ESS's You hear it in your headset Santos. You look out and you see him stand, say McCarthy, and then sit back down. Dang it, he's too far from a mic. Enough people heard it, though, But then you see the levels increase on your board. The Democrats are jeering him. You can't quite pick up what they're saying. You're MIC's although you
think maybe it's better this way. People don't need to hear these things. People don't need to witness their elected officials behaving like this. Crude, hurtful Zaren. You have got to get out of Washington while you can.
It's eating my soul, Elizabeth.
So it took I don't know if you'll remember, it took fifteen rounds of votes for McCarthy to finally get a speakership, and only then could George be sworn into office, which he was, and happened at like one in the morning a few days later. George Santos now officially a member of Congress. Let's stop this madness and listen to some ads. Calm our animal brains. When we return, mister Santos goes.
To Washington, Yes, Queen Zarin, Elizabeth.
So it was on January seventh, twenty twenty three, that George Santos was sworn into the US House of Representatives. Eight days later, four Republican New York congressman called for George's resignation.
Wow.
Eight days eight days the chair of the NASA County Republican Party called for him to step down. He said that Georgian quote, disgrace the House of Representatives, and we do not consider him one of our congress people.
So they do have a standard they do on paper. I did not know that.
George was like, you know what I hear you absolutely not, yes, not not going anywhere on food floor. In February of twenty twenty three, the House Ethics Committee initiated an investigation into his conduct. So like a month in.
Wow, and you know they were both he was hard at work though.
What was he doing that same month February twenty twenty three legislation he co sponsored a bill, Oh really, to designate the AR fifteen style rifle the National Gun of the United States.
The national gun he sponsored to make.
Like I'm telling you, I'm like, I love him and hate him so much, so whatever, it's clown behavior. So the truth about his lives just kept coming out and everything gets to like this fever pitch when it was released in November of that year. What did the ethics committee eventually find? Let me answer that question for you, zeron. Here are the categories misuse of campaign funds for personal expenses.
This is like an awards show. He diverted campaign contributions for personal use, including over four thousand dollars spent at air Mais.
Oh you know, yeah, it actually seems kind of light for MS.
I don't know, but I think, yeah, he's just crazy.
A couple of things.
Yeah, he paid for cosmetic procedures like botox.
Oh, he got his. Like basically, he's using campaign finance funds to pay for his botox because he needs to look good on TV exactly.
It makes sense it, Yeah, subscriptions to adult content platforms like OnlyFans.
Harder harder, irrationalized that one.
You know, it's just like self care.
Well, give me a second. Wait, So this is he's trying to understand what his constituents are are being irritated and annoyed by. It's research.
It's into the evils that he is fighting.
You have to know if he's going to fight at Elizabeth.
I remember I had to look at OnlyFans for that other story I told you.
Now you're an only fans model.
Yeah, I am so. So he went he paid for travel to like Atlantic City in Vegas, but there were no campaign related activities there.
Once again getting to know the sins because he went to fight literally personal.
Payments for his personal credit card bills and like debts.
Okay, I think I can get this one. Okay. Is electioneering, which is you cannot separate the candidate from the campaign.
Girl, you are like me doing my text right. Okay, Let's let's go another category. Fraudulent financial disclosures and deceptive practices.
Penn slipped, I did not file that paperwork.
And he was twenty months late.
Twenty months late, that's almost two year.
It's almost two years. It's like how you measure babies, Like that's a two year old. He reported in that worth of two point five to eleven point five million range. Yes, even though and he also had all these other claims that like, by the way.
I personally when people ask I say that I have a net value of a net worth of around negative seven million dollars to two million dollars positive somewhere in.
There, you know, ballpark it.
Well, then he also had a big ring.
He said he had all these other properties that he didn't have. Why would you claim them if you don't because you have to Well, no, this is just for your financial disclosures. Why anyway, he brokeered a nineteen million dollar yacht sale between two major campaign contributors. What yeah, and I don't know if he took a cut.
Whatever is that illegal?
Let's try category amateur boat swapping, amateur boat program, exploitation of campaign for personal gain. So the committee concluded that he sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his house candidacy for personal financial profit.
He even took the light bulbs.
Yeah, they said he put his desire for private gain above his duty to uphold the Constitution, federal law, and ethical principles. He was absolutely, as as would be expected, uncooperative with the committee's in grace, and he like they would ask him for just straightforward stuff and he'd be like, yeah, I'll get that to you there.
Yeah, check it out. Did you check your mailbocks?
What happens?
I must have the wrong address. You had the wrong adress.
So the Committee's like, you know what, We're going to refer all this other stuff that we have for potential criminal conduct to the Department of Justice. How do you like them apples? May twenty twenty three federal grand jury. So he gets it. January twenty twenty three, he's sworn in. Now we're in. May twenty twenty three, federal grand jury in the Eastern District of New York indicted him on
thirteen counts. And that's seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds, two counts of making materially false statements to the House of Representatives. That sounds like a big, big one. And so the charges alleged that he embezzled campaign contributions, that he fraudulently obtained unemployment benefits.
Wow.
So while he's like, oh, I make eleven million a year, ps, I'm not an appoyment. He lied in financial disclosures to the House of Reps. After his indictment, House Republican leadership said they weren't going to force him to resign, they
weren't going to give him the boot. House Democrats introduced a resolution to kick him out, but it didn't pass, and they were actually Democrats who voted to keep him because, like Katie Porter was one of them and her whole thing very like legal scholars like, well, he hasn't been convicted yet, so we can't really boot him until he's been convicted.
So the whole process, the due process.
Due process. So a superseding indictment came out in October twenty twenty three, added ten more charges. So now we're at twenty three totals. So now your friends order, Yeah, but listen to some of these. One count of conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States.
Oh, that's like just blow.
Two counts of wire fraud, two counts of making materially false statements to the Federal Election Commission, two counts of falsifying records submitted to obstruct the FEC, two counts of aggre aggravated identity.
Fat what is that is that when you beat someone with like it's.
A violent identity? And one count of access device fraud. Okay, So these additional charges, it was all about the fundraising reports. That's where those came.
Yeah, they don't care about the lives. It's the money.
Unauthorized charges on campaign contributors credit cards.
Oh, he used their cards.
You can do your campaign, you know, you can do your your contribution on this card. And then he's like, then I'm also going to slip in some you know, OnlyFans.
Just put down their numbers on a trip.
To like wow, the whole this whole time that this is going on, George is still in Congress, Yes, the whole time.
You know, you know how many indictments are in Congress that anyone can give in time?
They and that's on both sides.
Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, this is a Republican Democrats.
It's just it's way more than the general population.
Yeah, the House Republicans and House Democrats both have a lot of House to clean up.
Yeah, they do. Yeah, so George, he's there right in the thick of it. The Democrats tried and failed a bunch of times to get him kicked out, but then the Ethics report came out in November of twenty twenty three. Over the Thanksgiving break, George got on Twitter and said that like, look, I think I'm about to get the boot from Congress when we all get back from break. Yeah, and he said that he would wear it quote like
a badge of honor that I don't you know. He said that the head of the Ethics Committee Michael Guest was a quote pussy and said that no one and said that no one from Mississippi was going to push a New Yorker out of Congress.
So he's pulling Yankee moves.
I guess. George said that it was hypocritical of the House to expel him. He's not wrong there, and then that like that kicks off this threat of his to expose the misdeeds of his colleagues that continues to this day, like he's still threatening to air dirty laundry.
And I stay charged to it.
What have you got left to lose? On December first, all of.
His tomorrows, that's what he's got left to lose.
The House voted to expel him three hundred and eleven to one hundred and fourteen December first. He is the sixth member of the House of Representatives to be expelled, and the only Republican and the only member expelled without first being convicted of a federal crime or having supported the Confederacy. That's what all the other ones got. It so groundbreaking.
Back in the day, people shot each other on the House of Yah on the floors of the House, so this is true.
December eighteenth, twenty twenty three, he appeared on ze Way's show Oh right, and if you haven't seen it, please check it out. Ze Way's amazing. She's the most brutal interviewer. If she asked me to appear on her show, I would immediately decline.
Way more scared of her than Isaac Chottma.
Oh, she's terrifying. She would obliterate me and she'd show the world what a fool I am. But George walked right into it. Oh yeah, He's like, let's do this.
He's like introduced me to the chappa.
He pushed some of the same lies, he tried out new ones. He asked her to get paid to do it. Panders to all sorts of audiences. It's like a command performance. Yes, it's so. It's so embarrassing and so.
Beautiful, unhinged. It's like the Yeah I.
Watched George Santos on Zeaway. After he got kicked out of Congress, he needed to make money, so he turned to the cameo platform to generate income. You know what cameo is, right, You pay a celebrity to record a personalized video for you. Yes, and they're generally like priced
according to level of fame. So George originally priced his personalized video messages at seventy five dollars, but then like the demand was huge, so he quickly upped the rate to five hundred bucks a pop. Oh wow, and he claimed he said that he sold over twelve hundred videos. And then he started telling people that he'd earned more than four hundred thousand dollars from the platform. And at one point he said he was making over eighty thousand
dollars a day from cameo. Yeah, a day a day, which is more way more than the annual congressional salary of one hundred and seventy four thousand dollars.
Oh, and that's like Wilt Chamberlain math, like, I'm so busy every day. Just yeah, exactly, I'm doing cameo, cameo.
Consider the source.
I know, I don't.
So. So, despite his legal troubles, his cameo endeavors were deemed legal and ethically permissible because he was no longer subject to how ethics rules.
That makes sense.
Yeah, And then experts noted that, unlike his previous fraudulent activities, his cameo earnings were actually transparent transactions with willing participants.
That's true. Everybody knew what they were paying for getting.
Credit card numbers personally platform. On August nineteenth, twenty twenty four, George Santos pleaded guilty in federal court to wire fraud and aggravated identity.
Felt got it down to two charges.
Yeah, because the plea like that way he does this plea deal a trial they're going to throw.
On wire fraud because they love that lot just.
Is so good.
It's so juicy and has real, real charges.
Got legs. In his guilty plea, he admitted to filing fraudulent FEC reports to misrepresent his campaign's financial status. He admitted to embezzling funds from campaign donors for personal use, charging donors credit cards without authorization, stealing identities to facilitate fraudulent activities, obtaining unemployment benefits through false claims. I hope how great would it be if he was on unemployment well in Congress? Yeah, anyway, lying in reports submitted to
the House of Reps. He acknowledged that his ambition is what led him to make unethical decisions. He told the court quote, I accept full responsibility for my actions, but his social media post told a different story and so, US attorney John Durham said that he called the social media post unrepentant and proved that he deserved quote a
significant carceral sentence. Oh yeah, yeah, so George, He replied to someone on Twitter who asked if he really used campaign funds to quote buy air miz No, Santos responded, that's a false statement. That's impassed on his truth. But like, that's not what he just said in court. So there are a ton more examples like that where he contradict did what he said in court and just basically, you know, painted himself as the victim for all this. The man
cannot stop lying. On April twenty fifth, twenty twenty five, George Santos was sentenced to eighty seven months that's more than seven years federal prison lot. In addition to the prison term, he has to pay three hundred seventy three thousand, seven hundred forty nine and ninety seven cents in restitution, and he has to forfeit more than two hundred and five thousand dollars. During the sentencing, he did express remorse. He said he regretted defrauding the voters who supported his
congressional run. However, the judge was like, I don't think you are for real in that he said. The judge called him a quote arrogant fraudster. Oh so the judge is like, I can't believe a word you say. She highlighted all the social media activity how he had tried to monetize his notoriety as evidence that he's just again unrepentant. Hepped as the sentence was read. But the judge was like, and he asked for protective custody. The judges like, no, really for you, Jen Pop for you. So he has
to report to prison by July twenty fifth, twenty twenty five. Now, I'd read that he was trying to sell as many cameo videos as possible before July when he ships off to prison. And when I looked at the cameo website, I saw that he was having a sale. Oh no, yeah, one hundred dollars for a video he does like birthdays and special occasion messages. You can request a pep talk. I didn't have a cameo account, but I saw that
you could get thirty percent off your first video. Oh my goodness, And I had sixty dollars burning a hole in my back, so I asked for a pep talk video from George Santos, and I told him, I'm overwhelmed by the world. I'm super busy with my podcast. I just need some encouragement from the ultimate resilient diva, George Santos.
Yeah.
Basically, his profile has a one hour guarantee, so you get the video within the hour.
Are you kidding?
I'm not kidding, Like that's like he it has like a little like clock icon, like, hey, he'll do it.
He's desperate and so possible.
Thirty or so minutes later, I had this message from George, filmed as he sat in his car.
He Elizabeth, it's George Sancho's And I know life can get really stressful sometimes. Believe me, I would know a thing or two about strass But I want you to know, don't get overwhelmed with being busy. Don't have panicky attacks because of your podcast. Your podcast is supposed to be part of your life and of you building yourself up through work. And it's a positive, not a negative. Don't feel like all the work is overwhelming or or anything like that. Use it as a positive. That's how I
use my podcast as a positive. So I know you can do it. I know you can and you will.
So Elizabeth, Diva up energy and.
Always be resilient, be strong, and remember you're a queen and you can do whatever you want.
Bye.
Yes, Diva up Energy, Diva Up.
He even called you a queen. Yes.
Yes. So every person I've showed this to has remarked on how he seems like such a nice person, and I mean, lying narcissts have a way of coming across like that. But I do have compassion for the guy, and even I even kind of like him, even though the political stuff he says gives me an aneurysm. But he's such an interesting character. And now I tell myself, Diva up Energy when everythings get crazy, that George George wants me to be resilient like he is and he's
gonna He's gonna survive. This is Aaron, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
Thank you for asking, Elizabeth so rarely do my It would be I'm going to take away from this Diva Cup energy. So I'm gonna be there for you as a Diva cup while you Diva up. Oh God, no, am I getting is now? I just heard that it is just I know people use it. I know.
Yeah, it's for divas only.
Okay, Well anyway, Diva up, that's mine. What's yours, Elizabeth?
Oh my goodness, you know it's People are complex. Yes, they are very, very complex.
It's best not to paint them or to see them through just one of their many identities.
Well, and I have to this. I think was a good exercise for me to think about compassion and that like the anger that I feel and the like I don't want to succumb to that kind of thing. And every single person is human, even though I don't think maybe they are.
The nuns would be very proud of you.
They would be so proud of me right now.
For real, they would they He's so bummed that.
They wasted sixty bucks.
That's charity. It's like.
I want him to have at least a couple of packs of Ramens in his commissary.
He's not good with money.
I like how he's lecturing me on work.
Build with real stuff, Dave.
I think we need to talk back.
Yeah, let me rescue us. All. Oh my god, I cheat.
Hi, this is Carol.
I love your show.
I bought the merchandise so I have the move sweatshirt that says who knows who cares and on the back advertises the podcast. But I just you all make me smile and laugh, and that's so important in these current times.
And I just love it. My dogs love hearing you laugh.
Archie and Georgia.
Wait, Archie and Georgia. I love this. This whole thing is perfect. First of all, let's talk merch. Amazing. I love the merch. Oh you're wonderful and I adore you, and thank you. That was a good one. Yeah, we all need to like keep laughing, even though I think I just made a lot of people mad. That's okay.
I'm just trying to point out that that you were not in any way advocating anything about the politics, but the person. So for focusing on the person, I think that he has an interesting character.
Well, and we've said it before too, that like anytime we talk about someone on here, we're talking about the things they do, not the actual individual, you know, like we're laughing at that. And everyone is also just a few bad decisions away.
From political candidate in the New York Sturt history.
That is like the worst decision. Oh that's it for today. You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com or the merch Lies. We can also be found on blue Sky and Instagram. You can email us at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. You can check out YouTube, like and subscribe as the kids say to Ridiculous Crime pod see how I Cut Myself off and then please download the iHeart app. Leave a talkback like that sweet one.
Whatever you do, reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Drewish Princess Dave Kusten, starring Amils rutger Is Judith. Research is by Smalltown muckbreaker Marissa Brown. The theme song is by mar Alago busboys Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair and makeup
by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are representative from New York's one hundred and thirty fourth District, Van Bollin and House Ethics Watchdog Noel Brown. Ridicous Crime Say It One More Time Piquious Crime.
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts my Heart Radio. Visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.