Everything The Embattled Congressman Has Lied About

A hefty salary: Santos claimed he made a $750,000 salary and up to $10 million in dividends between 2021 and 2022 through a company he founded in 2021 called the Devolder Organization, according to his most recent financial disclosure–but reported making only $55,000 during his 2020 campaign for Congress.

Santos did not report, however, that he received payments as recently as April 2021 from a Florida-based financial services company he used to work for, Harbor City Capital, which was accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of a “classic Ponzi scheme,” The Washington Post reported.

A career selling yachts: Santos told Semafor that he made money at Devolder by brokering luxury purchases, like a “$20 million yacht,” for wealthy clients, but refused to provide the publication with a client list or details about the alleged contracts.

A real estate empire: Santos claimed he owned a $1 million apartment in Brazil and said on the campaign trail his family owned 13 real estate properties, but he later told the New York Post he does not own any real estate properties and is living with his sister at her apartment in Queens, where she’s allegedly facing eviction for $40,000 in unpaid rent.

His campaign cash: Santos’ campaign sought donations through a group that billed itself as an independent expenditure committee called Redstone Strategies, but the Federal Election Commission said it could not find evidence Redstone was registered as a political group or records of its donors, contributions or spending, The Times reported Thursday.

Watchdog group the Campaign Legal Center accused Devolder of being a bogus business used to funnel money to the Santos campaign and suspects Santos may have underreported donations and used some of the money on personal expenses, it wrote in a complaint to the Federal Election Commission.

His inflated resume: Santos claimed he attended the prestigious Horace Mann prep school before graduating summa cum laude from Baruch College with a 3.89 GPA, scoring a 710 on his GMAT exam and earning a master’s degree in international business from New York University–but later admitted to the New York Post he never graduated from college, while a Horace Mann spokesperson told The Times there were no records of him attending.

A stint on Wall Street: Santos confessed to The New York Post that he embellished claims of working directly for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, blaming the lies on “a poor choice of words” and explaining that he instead worked with the companies during his time at LinkBridge Investors.

An animal rescue charity: Santos said he founded and owned an animal rescue charity called Friends of Pets United, but after The Times found no IRS documents to back up Santos’ claim, he changed his story to say he only campaigned for the charity and helped find foster homes for the animals.

A Covid-19 diagnosis: Santos said in a March 2020 interview, just weeks after the first Covid-19 case was detected in New York, that he had been hospitalized with the disease, which he said was complicated by previous brain tumor–yet he appeared to be healthy at the same time he was allegedly suffering from the virus in interview clips a Washington Post reporter recently uncovered and changed the timeline of his alleged diagnosis in subsequent interviews.

Ties to the Pulse nightclub shooting: Santos admitted that he fabricated his claim that he “lost” four employees in the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, explaining in a recent WABC radio interview with disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY), that he was in the process of hiring the four victims.

His mother’s death: Santos said “9/11 claimed [his] mother’s life,” but contradicted himself when he commemorated her 2016 death in a December 2021 tweet; his campaign website said his mother, Fatima Devolder, was present at the attacks and later succumbed to cancer.

His “Jewish” heritage: Santos claimed on his campaign website that his maternal grandparents fled Ukraine to escape anti-Jewish persecution during World War II, but confessed to the New York Post that he is not Jewish and identifies as “Jew-ish,” while genealogy records reviewed by The Forward show his maternal grandparents were both born in Brazil.

His marriage: Santos, who claims to be the first openly gay non-incumbent GOP representative elected to Congress, never disclosed his marriage to a woman, The Daily Beast reported, citing records that show the pair were divorced less than two weeks before he launched his 2020 campaign for Congress.

His criminal background: After The Times uncovered Brazilian court records showing Santos was charged with check fraud in 2008 for allegedly stealing a man’s checkbook and using it to make fraudulent purchases, Brazilian prosecutors announced they would reopen the case.