Samuel Miele is the second person who worked on Representative George Santos’s House election campaigns to plead guilty to federal charges.
A second person connected to the campaign of Representative George Santos of New York has pleaded guilty to federal charges, an ominous sign as the embattled congressman’s own case moves closer to trial.
Appearing before a federal judge in Central Islip, N.Y., on Tuesday, Samuel Miele pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in connection with a fund-raising scheme in which he impersonated a House staffer for his and Mr. Santos’s benefit.
But the most intriguing details to emerge from court were related to incidents that Mr. Miele was not charged with, but admitted to as part of his guilty plea.
Between November 2020 and January 2023, Mr. Miele used his position with the Santos campaign to charge donors’ credit cards without their permission and to apply contributions to things they had not been intended for.
Prosecutors have accused Mr. Santos, 35, of similar schemes. They said he repeatedly debited donors’ credit cards without their authorization and raised money for a fictitious super PAC, distributing the money to his and other candidates’ campaigns as well as his own bank account.
Mr. Miele admitted in one instance to having solicited $470,000 from an older man that was used in ways that the donor had not intended.
Judge Joanna Seybert, who is also overseeing Mr. Santos’s case, said that Mr. Miele was being required to return the money to the man.
It is not clear if Mr. Santos was aware of or involved in Mr. Miele’s fraudulent use of donors’ credit cards, or the $470,000 solicitation. No explanation was given for why Mr. Miele was not charged in the matter; his lawyer declined to say whether his plea included an agreement with federal prosecutors to testify against Mr. Santos.
In court on Tuesday, Mr. Miele did not name Mr. Santos, nor did he implicate him in his actions. Nonetheless, his guilty plea, which comes just over a month after that of Mr. Santos’s campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks, is an inauspicious sign for the congressman.
Like Ms. Marks, Mr. Miele was a member of Mr. Santos’s inner circle, involved not only in his congressional campaign but also his personal business ventures.
Prosecutors accused Mr. Miele, 27, of carrying out the fund-raising scheme in the fall of 2021 to aid Mr. Santos’s ultimately successful election campaign for the House, charging him with four counts of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. Of those, he pleaded guilty to a single count, for which he could nonetheless serve more than two years in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for April 30.
The indictment, filed this August, did not identify the staffer that Mr. Miele was said to have impersonated, though The New York Times and others have reported that it was Dan Meyer, who was then chief of staff to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Dressed in a too-large navy suit coat, with black hair slicked back, Mr. Miele stood to read from a prepared statement.
“Between August and December 2021, I pretended I was chief of staff to the then leader of the House of Representatives,” he said. “I did that to help raise funds for the campaign I was working on.”
Mr. Santos, a Republican representing parts of Long Island and Queens, has not been charged in connection with Mr. Miele’s impersonation. The congressman has said that he was unaware of the ruse, and fired Mr. Miele shortly after learning of it from Republican leadership. Joseph Murray, a lawyer for Mr. Santos who attended Tuesday’s hearing, declined to comment.
Mr. Santos faces a 23-count indictment that includes wire fraud, money laundering and aggravated identity theft. Prosecutors have said that Mr. Santos used multiple methods to steal tens of thousands of dollars from campaign donors.
They have charged him with falsifying campaign filings, including listing a $500,000 loan that had not been made when it was reported. And they have accused him of collecting unemployment funds when he was, in fact, employed. Mr. Santos has pleaded not guilty to all counts.
Earlier this month, he survived a second effort to expel him from Congress, this one led by members of his own party. That resolution, introduced by Representative Anthony D’Esposito, a first-term Republican representing a neighboring district on Long Island, cited Mr. Santos’s now well-known history of duplicity as well as the ongoing criminal case against him. It was resoundingly defeated, with both Republicans and Democrats agreeing that such an action would be premature without a conviction.
Mr. Santos has insisted that such a conviction will never come, calling the proceedings a “witch hunt” and rebuffing calls for his resignation.
The congressman is also facing scrutiny from the House Ethics Committee, which signaled that it was drawing close to the conclusion of its monthslong investigation. That panel, which is made up of both Democrats and Republicans, is expected to issue a report and recommendations later this week.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
