George Santos, a newly elected New York congressman facing scrutiny for multiple lies about his background on the campaign trail, is facing revived charges from authorities in Brazil relating to a 2008 check fraud incident.
According to Brazilian prosecutors, Mr Santos, at age 19, used a stolen checkbook and false name to make at least $700 in fraudulent purchases at a clothing store in the city of Niterói.
Charges were put on hold when officials in the country couldn’t locate Mr Santos.
With his “whereabouts identified,” the court process will continue, the Rio de Janeiro prosecutor’s office told the New York Times, which first reported on the 2008 incident.
Mr Santos, who appears to have misled voters about his career, family, and educational history, has denied any wrongdoing.
“I am not a criminal here — not here or in Brazil or any jurisdiction in the world,” Mr Santos told the New York Post in December in regards to an alleged criminal past. “Absolutely not. That didn’t happen.”
However, he previously admitted to the fraud, the New York Times reported.
Mr Santos wrote, “I know I screwed up, but I want to pay,” on social media site Orkut in 2009, and told police in 2010 that he and his mother stole the checkbook from his mother’s former employer and used it to make fraudulent purchases.
Following multiple news reports that the incoming representative made false claims about being Jewish, working on Wall Street, and attending top New York universities, Mr Santos has faced increasing scrutiny.
The New York attorney general’s office said in December it is “looking into a number of issues” surrounding the congressman-elect, who takes office on Tuesday.
The federal US attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York is also probing Mr Santos’s finances and financial disclosure filings.
The Santos campaign has raised eyebrows because the candidate loaned himself $700,000, after previously disclosing no assets and a $55,000 salary as recently as 2020.
“George Santos, a former call center employee falling behind on his rent, lent his campaign a staggering $705,000. Where did all that money come from?” New York representative Ritchie Torres wrote on Twitter last month. “The Ethics Committee MUST start investigating immediately.”
