WASHINGTON — Rep.-elect George Santos’ fate was up in the air on two continents on Tuesday.
Like the rest of the new Congress, he couldn’t be sworn in as scheduled as Republican infighting prevented the election of a new speaker of the House.
Meanwhile, a prosecutor’s office in Brazil said it was reviving a long-dormant criminal case against the fabulist Long Island Republican.
Santos ignored reporters on Capitol Hill as he made his way to his new office Tuesday morning. He then sat alone in the back of the House, peering down at his phone or yawning as Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) failed to gain enough support to become speaker in three votes held during the course of the day.
“The chaos among House Republicans has one silver lining,” Rep. Ritchie Torres, a New York Democrat, said after the House adjourned. “George Santos has not been sworn in.”
Santos, 34, may have been less concerned about his swearing-in and more focused on the cross-continental scandal enveloping him.
A blizzard of lies, some of which he has admitted, have been attributed to him over the past two weeks, and multiple prosecutors’ offices have said they are investigating him. On Tuesday, the Rio de Janeiro prosecutor’s office said it was reviving a case that dates to 2008.
The prosecutor’s office said the case had been suspended because officials could not find an address for Santos, but that his election to represent New York’s 3rd Congressional District paved the way for them to locate him.
The office added that it was requesting that U.S. authorities notify Santos of the charges to move forward with the process.
The office intends to “petition in the process, informing that the defendant was elected to the U.S. House and, therefore, has a known address where he can be summoned,” a spokesman for the office, Bruno Vaz, said in an email to the Daily News.
U.S. Rep.-elect George Santos (R-N.Y.) waits for the start of the 118th Congress in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol Building on January 3, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Court records indicate Santos, then 19, used a fake name and stolen checkbook as he spent almost $700 at a clothing store in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, according to The New York Times, which first reported the revival of the charges.
Santos wrote on a social media platform, “I know I screwed up, but I want to pay.” But it does not appear he ever did, The Times reported. He later relocated to the U.S.
The U.S. has an extradition treaty with Brazil. But it was not clear that the American authorities would grant any potential extradition request.
To secure his extradition, the Brazilian government would need to show the charges are punishable by more than a year in prison in both countries, said Jacques Semmelman, an extradition specialist and former federal prosecutor.
“In addition, the government of Brazil would have to demonstrate that the statute of limitations for the offense has not expired either under Brazilian law or U.S. law,” Semmelman said. “It remains to be seen if Brazil will be able to make the requisite showings.”
Rep.-elect George Santos (R-N.Y.) yawns during the vote for the House speaker as the US House of Representatives convenes for the 118th Congress at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, January 3, 2023. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
Santos’ campaign and his lawyer did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the Brazil case.
Last week, Santos acknowledged misrepresenting parts of his biography including his education, professional experience and property ownership, after The Times published a bombshell report examining holes in his resume.
Santos has suggested his mother died on 9/11 — she did not — and said he is Jewish, later downplaying the claim. He’s also indicated he studied at schools that he does not appear to have attended.
Santos also appears to have swiftly built personal wealth despite a history of debt and financial troubles.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat and the incoming minority leader, has described Santos as a “serial fraudster.”
[ George Santos: Fact vs. fiction ]
Santos, whose district stretches from eastern Queens out into the suburbs, has maintained that he is “not a fraud.”
“I’m not a criminal,” he told WABC-AM last week. “Not here, not abroad, in any jurisdiction in the world, have I ever committed any crimes. And I’m more than happy to corroborate that.”
[ George Santos funneled $25K to Lee Zeldin’s campaign for governor — and then reimbursed himself ]
In New York, he faces growing legal scrutiny.
Last week, ABC News reported that federal prosecutors had started to comb through his public filings. The Nassau County district attorney’s office, the Queens district attorney’s office and the state attorney general’s office all signaled that they were looking into Santos, too.
With Joseph Wilkinson
Copyright © 2023, New York Daily News
Copyright © 2023, New York Daily News
