The fraud trial against former U.S. Rep. George Santos may be on pause, as sources familiar with the case now say the Long Island politician is expected to plead guilty on Monday.
A hearing for the planned guilty plea has been scheduled for 3 p.m. in federal court, according to two sources familiar with the matter tell News 4.
Santos’ lawyer did not return requests for comment, and spokespersons for the FBI and U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment.
The former congressman had pleaded not guilty to a range of financial crimes, including lying to Congress about his wealth, collecting unemployment benefits while actually working, and using campaign contributions to pay for personal expenses such as designer clothing.
Santos is expected to plead guilty to multiple counts in the indictment.
In court, Santos’ lawyers have pushed back at claims prosecutors made in prior legal filings that they’re not participating fully in the required pretrial document-sharing process known as discovery.
Prosecutors this month said they’ve turned over more than 1.3 million pages of records, while defense lawyers have produced just five pages. But when pressed by the judge, Santos’ lawyers maintained that they’ve turned over every document in their possession.
“We’re not stonewalling,” said Joe Murray, a lawyer for Santos. “Trial by ambush is not how I operate.”
The New York Republican’s lawyers had argued in recent court filings that a questionnaire addressing potential jurors’ “knowledge, beliefs, and preconceptions” was needed because of the extensive negative media coverage surrounding Santos, who was expelled from Congress in December after an ethics investigation found “overwhelming evidence” he had broken the law and exploited his public position for his own profit.
They cited more than 1,500 articles by major news outlets and a “Saturday Night Live” skit about Santos. They also noted similar questionnaires were used in other high-profile federal cases in New York, including the trial of notorious drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
“For all intents and purposes, Santos has already been found guilty in the court of public opinion,” read the defense memo filed last week.
But prosecutors, voicing their opposition in a legal brief, argued Santos’ request was simply a delay tactic, as the trial date was set more than nine months ago and some 850 prospective jurors have already been summoned.
The public perception of Santos, they argued, is also “largely a product of his own making” as he’s spent months “courting the press and ginning up” media attention.
Judge Joanna Seybert on Tuesday granted Santos’ request for a partially anonymous jury in which the individual jurors’ identities will be known only by the judge, the two sides and their attorneys. Prosecutors had previously said they didn’t object to the measure, given the case’s high-profile nature.
Lawyers for the government are also seeking to admit as evidence some of the lies Santos made during his campaign. Before he was elected in 2022 to represent parts of Queens and Long Island, he made false claims that he graduated from both New York University and Baruch College and that he had worked at financial giants Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.
Prosecutors argue that the wholesale fabrications are “inextricably intertwined” with the criminal charges he faces.
Last month, the federal judge turned down Santos’ request to dismiss three of the 23 charges he faces. Santos dropped a long-shot bid to return to Congress as an independent in April.
