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Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) claimed checks written to dog breeders in 2017 had been stolen. | POLITICO Illustration/Photo by Getty Images
More people are questioning George Santos’ claim that he rescued 2,400 animals and are accusing him of pocketing thousands of dollars meant for pets: NYT
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- More people are coming forward and accusing George Santos of pocketing funds meant for pets.
- Andrea Dos Santos, a veterinary technician, said she never received $2,165 meant for a pet shelter.
- “It was excuse after excuse after excuse,” Dos Santos told The New York Times.
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More people are coming forward to question whether Rep. George Santos really helped rescue 2,500 animals, or if he just pocketed money raised for pets.
The New York Times spoke to several people who worked with Santos on a charity called Friends of Pets United, which he claims he founded.
The Times’ sources said they think Santos saved far fewer animals than the “2400 dogs and 280 cats” that he claimed in 2020 to have rescued. The sources also said they either never got any money from Santos-run fundraisers or were given a far lower amount of cash than they had been promised.
Andrea Dos Santos, a veterinary technician, told The Times that in 2017, Santos offered to help her raise funds for her farm in New Jersey. Dos Santos said she worked with Santos to sell $50 tickets to a barbecue with live music and drinks. The proceeds from the event, Dos Santos said, were meant to go to building a new shelter for abused pets.
Dos Santos said they raised $2,165. But she never received any money from Santos, who had handled the funds. She told The Times she found it hard to contact Santos after the fundraiser.
“It was excuse after excuse after excuse,” Dos Santos said.
Regina Spadavecchia, who runs a Bronx pet rescue called Adore-a-Bullie Paws and Claws, told The Times that she accepted Santos’ offer to help her raise funds in March 2017. Spadavecchia said Santos held a $5 raffle on Facebook for a dinner cruise and Broadway tickets, appealing for funds for the dozen dogs in Spadavecchia’s care.
Spadavecchia said Santos sent her only around $400, instead of the thousands of dollars he had promised her.
“If you’re doing fund-raising in my name, and you’re claiming you can make a couple of thousand, and you’re sending me $400, then something’s off,” Ms. Spadavecchia told the Times. “You’re either boasting about stuff you can’t do, or you’re keeping money on the side. I don’t know.”
Meanwhile, Monica Cunha, one of Santos’ acquaintances on Facebook, told The Times that Santos claimed he would take in dogs whose owners could not care for them. But Cunha said Santos rarely posted about the dogs’ adoption process.
According to The Washington Post, Santos in November 2020 claimed on his campaign website that he “founded and ran a nonprofit 501(c)(3) called Friends of Pets United (FOPU) from 2013 – 2018.”
A December 19 investigation from The Times revealed that Friends of Pets United was not a registered animal rescue organization in New York.
The FBI in January also kicked off an investigation into whether Santos took more than $3,000 from a GoFundMe fundraiser meant for a military veteran’s dog, per Politico.
Santos has denied scamming the veteran, Rich Osthoff, of funds from the GoFundMe page. The congressman tweeted on January 20 that he thought reports that he would let a dog die were “shocking and insane.”
“My work in animal advocacy was the labor of love and hard work,” Santos wrote.
Santos has admitted to lying about various elements of his past, including going to university, being Jewish, and working at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. Santos has refused to resign from his congressional seat despite these scandals, saying he will only do so if the people who voted for him in New York demand it.
Representatives for Santos did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
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The New York congressman had the charge dismissed and his record expunged after claiming his checkbook was stolen.
Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) claimed checks written to dog breeders in 2017 had been stolen. | POLITICO Illustration/Photo by Getty Images
NEW YORK – Rep. George Santos was charged with theft in Pennsylvania’s Amish Country in 2017 after a series of bad checks were written in his name to dog breeders, according to the court and a lawyer friend who helped him address the charge.
Just days after $15,125 in checks were made out for “puppies,” according to the memo lines, Santos held an adoption event at a Staten Island pet store with his animal rescue charity Friends of Pets United, according to the store’s Instagram account and a person who attended the event.
The charge was dismissed and his record expunged after Santos claimed someone had stolen his checkbook, according to the court and the lawyer.
The Pennsylvania theft charge, which has not previously been reported, is the latest revelation in a
In the email, Borgosian argued Santos’ case, as he’d relayed it to her.
“In 2017 he received four check books for the account at his request from the TD BANK branch he banked with in Queens, NY, and of the four one went missing,” Bogosian wrote to the Pennsylvania trooper.
“He immediately called his bank upon learning 1/4 check books was missing and all checks were canceled at that time, with a stop pay on all checks.”
“As such no checks were ever cashed or presented against his account due to his cancellation of all checks linked to this account. The account was closed on March 3, 2018, for personal reasons unrelated to any alleged fraud on his account (banking preference),” Bogosian wrote.
Santos told Bogosian, because he was involved in politics, he couldn’t have an outstanding charge against him. A week after their meeting, he went to Pennsylvania to address the warrant, and told prosecutors that he “worked for the S.E.C.,” successfully persuading them to drop the charges, she remembered him telling her after he returned.
Bogosian said she didn’t learn why the Pennsylvania State Police couldn’t locate Santos until 2020, or how they ultimately found him in Queens, but said the trooper seemed happy to have “finally found” Santos when she talked to him on the phone after she sent the email.
Bogosian said she now doesn’t believe Santos’ story, after what happened a few months later.
“I did think it was so weird at the time that his checks didn’t have his address or phone number listed on them. After the dinner with Christian [Lopez] I started having second thoughts, I thought, ‘Oh, he had the animal adoptions.’ To be honest, even at the time I questioned it,” she said, but she ultimately took Santos at his word.
Theft by deception charge
A representative from York County District Court in Pennsylvania confirmed Santos was charged in November 2017 with theft by deception, but said the record was expunged on Nov. 24, 2021. No further information about why the charge was expunged could be given, the representative said.
One of Santos’ bounced checks was written out to Jacob Stoltzfus, a dog breeder in Bird-in-Hand, Pa., in the amount of $775 for “puppy” and dated Nov. 22, 2017, according to a copy of the check obtained by POLITICO. Stoltzfus said that would have been a typical amount for one of his purebred dogs at the time.
The recipients attempted to cash the checks at Coatesville Savings Bank and Bank of Bird-in-Hand in Pennsylvania.
Just three days after the $775 check is dated — on Nov. 25, 2017 — Santos’ animal charity Friends of Pets United held a puppy adoption event at the Staten Island pet store Pet Oasis.
“Friends of Pets United has a puppy overload … We’ll be cuddling: Golden Retriever, Lab, Yorkie, Border collie, American Eskimo and Shepherds … #adoptdontshop,” an Instagram post from Pet Oasis read.
“The fees were always different and he always had a ton of puppies and a ton of people helping him,” Vazzo said in an interview.
Santos told her different stories about where the puppies came from, sometimes saying he found pregnant dogs on the street and other times claiming he rescued them in Puerto Rico or other places, she said.
After Vazzo adopted her puppy, Santos asked her to volunteer for his charity to foster dogs and coordinate adoption events. She grew disillusioned with him after she said she fostered an estimated 30 dogs in one month, but the only help Santos offered was some money for paper towels.
The charity was not a registered nonprofit or rescue group, according to
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