A prosecutor’s office in Brazil said that it was reviving a long-dormant criminal case against George Santos, as the fabulist Long Island congressman-elect prepared to take his House seat on Tuesday.
The Rio de Janeiro prosecutor’s office said the case, which dates to 2008, 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 prosecutor’s office said 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 spokesperson for the office, Bruno Vaz, said in an email to the Daily News.
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 appears to have a history of shape shifting when it comes to his name. He has sometimes gone by Anthony Devolder, according to The Washington Post.)
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.
Santos, a 34-year-old Republican, is set to be sworn into Congress on Tuesday afternoon, unbowed by a trail of lies that have been attributed to him and that, in some cases, he has admitted. His campaign and his lawyer did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the Brazil case.
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.”
Last week, Santos acknowledged misrepresenting areas of his biography including his education, professional experience and property ownership, after The Times published a bombshell report on Dec. 19 examining holes in his resume. That report disclosed the existence of the charges in Brazil.
Santos has suggested his mother died on 9/11 — she did not — has said he is Jewish (he later downplayed the claim), and has indicated he studied at schools that he does not appear to have attended.
He also appears to have swiftly built personal wealth despite a history of debt and financial troubles.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat and the incoming minority leader, has described Santos as a “serial fraudster.”
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.”
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.
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(New York Daily News reporter Joseph Wilkinson conntributed to this article.)
