Judge delays George Santos’s sentencing in federal fraud case

The disgraced former congressman George Santos, facing a federal prison sentence, has won a few months’ freedom to come up with more than half a million dollars in court fines – including revenue from his new podcast.

A New York judge on Wednesday granted the Republican’s request to delay his 7 February sentencing after he pleaded guilty this summer to federal fraud and identity theft charges.

The US district court judge Joanna Seybert set the new court date for 25 April, which is about three months less than Santos sought.

The judge called the short adjournment a “one-time courtesy” granted in the interest of justice.

“Since the date that the defendant entered his plea of guilty, he has not made any payments toward the amount owed nor has he indicated that he has funds to do so, despite his promises and predictions,” Seybert wrote.

Santos admitted in August that he duped voters, deceived donors and stole the identities of nearly a dozen people, including his own family members, to make donations to his congressional campaign.

He agreed to pay nearly $375,000 in restitution and $205,000 in forfeiture and faces a mandatory minimum two-year sentence and up to 22 years in prison.

In a letter to the judge on Friday, Santos’s lawyers said the 36-year-old needed more time to build his newly launched podcast, Pants on Fire, in order to pay off the roughly $580,000 in fines, some of which comes due before his sentencing.

Prosecutors opposed the delay in a letter on Tuesday, dismissing Santos’s promises of a forthcoming windfall as “extremely speculative”.

They also cast doubt on his claim of having little more than $1,000 in liquid assets, arguing he had earned more than $800,000 from appearances on the video-sharing website Cameo and from a new documentary since he was expelled from Congress in 2023.

The office of Breon Peace, the US attorney for the eastern district of New York, declined to comment. Lawyers for Santos did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Wednesday.

Santos was elected in 2022 to represent a wealthy New York district covering parts of Queens and Long Island.

But the once-rising Republican lasted barely a year in office as his fabricated life story unraveled. His claims of a career at top Wall Street firms and having a college degree were debunked and questions were raised about how he funded his campaign.

Santos became just the sixth House member in the chamber’s history to be ousted by colleagues.