Federal prosecutors are seeking a prison sentence of more than seven years for George Santos, the former Republican congressman from New York whose career unraveled after much of his résumé was revealed to be the product of a stunning series of lies.
In a court filing on Friday, prosecutors for the Eastern District of New York asked for a sentence of 87 months for Mr. Santos to reflect the “seriousness of his unparalleled crimes.”
In 2023, prosecutors charged Mr. Santos with 23 felony counts while he was still a representative in Congress. He pleaded guilty last August, after his expulsion from the House, to two of those charges, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, and admitted to an array of other deceits.
Mr. Santos, 36, is scheduled to be sentenced on April 25. Guidelines call for a sentence of roughly six to seven years in prison, though the judge in the case will make the final decision.
In his drive for wealth and electoral victory, the prosecutors’ filing said, Mr. Santos fabricated his past and engaged in a series of schemes, including inflating his fund-raising numbers and stealing from donors. “He lied to his campaign staff, his supporters, his putative employer and congressional colleagues, and the American public,” the prosecutors wrote.
“Santos’s conduct has made a mockery of our election system,” they added.
In a separate filing on Friday, lawyers for Mr. Santos asked for a sentence of two years, the minimum allowed for aggravated identity theft, followed by probation. Mr. Santos has acknowledged the gravity of his crimes, the filing said, and agreed to pay nearly $375,000 in restitution.
“His conduct, though involving dishonesty and abuse of trust, stemmed largely from a misguided desperation related to his political campaign, rather than inherent malice,” his lawyers wrote.
The public disgrace that Mr. Santos endured and his removal from Congress meant that he was unlikely to commit similar crimes in the future, they said.
Prosecutors in their filing disagreed, writing that a significant sentence was needed to account for the “breadth, scope and predatory nature” of Mr. Santos’s crimes.
The former congressman’s defiant insistence that he was the victim of a “witch hunt,” and his refusal to step down after evidence of his guilt came to light, have “added insult to injury” and undermined his subsequent claims of remorse, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors cited Mr. Santos’s appearance on Cameo, a video-sharing platform for celebrities, his participation in a documentary and the recent debut of his podcast, “Pants on Fire With George Santos,” as evidence that he had made efforts to “leverage his lawbreaking as a springboard to celebrity and riches.”
Mr. Santos lied about his credentials and background for years before he ran for office, prosecutors said. Describing him as “a pathological liar and fraudster,” they argued in their filing that he was likely to commit similar crimes again in the future if he was not imprisoned for a substantial period.
One of Mr. Santos’s lawyers, Joseph W. Murray, said in a statement that he was “very disappointed and in fact embarrassed” by the prosecutors’ sentencing request, which he described as “draconian.”
“George has learned a lot over this process and has accepted responsibility for his actions and is committed to doing the right thing and moving forward in a positive light, which is apparently upsetting to the government,” Mr. Murray wrote, adding that he considered his client a personal friend and “an incredibly good-hearted young man.”
A post on Saturday from the X account for Mr. Santos’s podcast said that prosecutors had “used elaborate language to drag” the former congressman.
“Long story short, I will NOT succumb to their soul crushing antics and that makes them furious,” the post said.
Mr. Santos burst onto the national stage in 2022 after his election to Congress helped his party win control of the House. Young, gay and the son of Brazilian immigrants, Mr. Santos positioned himself as part of the new face of the Republican Party, and a proud supporter of Donald Trump.
But before he was even sworn in, The New York Times reported that he had fabricated much of his résumé. Further reporting by The Times and other outlets revealed an array of outlandish lies about personal connections to the Holocaust, the Sept. 11 attacks and the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, as well as financial fraud and a slew of campaign finance violations.
Mr. Santos was expelled from Congress in late 2023, after a report by the House Ethics Committee found evidence that he had broken federal law.
