Santos campaign fundraiser pleads guilty to wire fraud

Samuel Miele, a former campaign fundraiser for out gay Rep. George Santos (R-NY), has pleaded guilty to wire fraud.

In August, Miele was indicted on four counts of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. He was accused of sending emails and making phone calls soliciting donations for Santos’s campaign in which he allegedly claimed to be then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) former chief-of-staff.

Related:

George Santos rages at Megan Rapinoe for joking that God doesn’t exist. He got brutally mocked.

“It’s funny when you try and take the moral high ground.”

According to the federal indictment, Miele admitted to “faking my identity” to potential donors in a September 2022 letter to Santos. Miele, who earned 15 percent of every donation he solicited, described himself as “high risk, high reward in everything I do.”

Insights for the LGBTQ+ community

Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more.

Daily

Weekly

Good News

As part of his plea on Tuesday, Miele agreed to pay $109,171 in restitution, $69,136 in forfeiture, and a separate stipulated payment of $470,000 to a contributor, according to ABC News. He admitted to charging credit cards for contributions to the Santos campaign and the campaigns of other candidates without authorization.

Miele is set to be sentenced in April and faces up to 20 years in prison.

Miele is the second former Santos campaign staffer to plead guilty to federal criminal charges. Last month, Nancy Marks, Santos’s former campaign treasurer, pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge for allegedly filing names of false donors to the Santos campaign to the FEC. Marks implicated Santos in the scheme to make his second congressional campaign seem like it had more financial support than it actually did.

Marks’s lawyer indicated that she is willing to testify against Santos in his upcoming trial. The congressman faces a total of 23 federal charges of fraud and financial crimes. He has pleaded not guilty to all 23 charges. A trial date has been set for September 2024.

Santos has also admitted to fabricating large parts of his personal history during his election campaign. In July, out Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) and other House Democrats introduced a resolution to censure Santos for lying about his personal and professional life in order to get elected.

Late last month, Santos survived an attempt led by his fellow New York Republicans to expel him from the House. He has said he has no intention of resigning and will seek re-election, though he will face numerous Republican primary challengers. He also faces a House Ethics Committee investigation. The committee is expected to release its findings before the end of the year.