An assistant to Rep. George Santos was charged Wednesday with allegedly posing as a staffer of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to lift cash for the embattled Republican legislature.
According to the indictment unsealed Wednesday in New York’s Eastern District, Santos’ assistant, Samuel Miele, was charged with wire fraud and identification theft.
Miele appeared in courtroom in Brooklyn and was launched on $150,000 bail after pleading not responsible.
He is accused of sending “fraudulent fundraising” emails to potential donors posing as a “high-ranking aide” to a Republican in House management.
Miele obtained a 15 p.c fee of the cash raised, the go well with mentioned.
Santos himself was hit with federal legal expenses in May
CNBC reported that in January that rich Republican donors had obtained calls and emails from a person named Dan Meyer, who had served as McCarthy’s chief of employees in the course of the 2020 and 2022 marketing campaign cycles.
That individual was really Miele, CNBC mentioned.
The Miele indictment, filed on Tuesday, doesn’t identify Santos – however the two males had already been linked in information stories.
Santos himself was hit with federal legal expenses in May.
Federal prosecutors filed legal expenses towards the Long Island legislator, who has admitted to mendacity about his previous and fabricating his resume.
Beneath a litany of lies, he has been accused of violating marketing campaign finance legal guidelines, stealing cash meant for an Iraq War veteran’s dying canine, and bank card fraud.
Santos pleaded not responsible in courtroom to 13 counts of cash laundering, wire fraud and making false statements throughout his marketing campaign.
Prosecutors in New York’s Eastern District mentioned Wednesday that the Santos and Miele circumstances must be thought of “related.”
Democrats and a few Republican colleagues have known as for him to step down, however he has refused, as a substitute asserting his reelection in 2024.
McCarthy mentioned in May that he’ll “quickly” attempt to refer a Democrat-led decision to expel the disgraced Santos to the ethics committee.
‘I would like to see the ethics committee work on this quickly. I think there’s sufficient data now that they’ll begin wanting into this,” the GOP chief mentioned, in remarks that had been a step up from earlier instances he refused to name for Santos to resign.
House Democrats launched the decision to oust Santos after he was indicted.