New York Congressman-Elect George Santos speaks during the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) annual leadership meeting.
David Becker for the Washington Post/via Getty Images
- Republican Rep. George Santos has made false statements about his work and education history.
- On Wednesday, WaPo reported he was paid by a firm accused of being a Ponzi scheme in April 2021.
- But payment from the firm was not included in his candidate financial disclosure.
Republican Rep. George Santos of New York was paid by a company that the Securities and Exchange Commission called a “classic Ponzi scheme” but failed to disclose it, according to a report published Wednesday by The Washington Post.
Santos, who has made false claims about his education and employment history, was paid by the firm, Harbor City Capital, which is based in Florida, as recently as April 2021, according to Katherine C. Donlon, a lawyer appointed by the court to review the firm. She declined to tell The Post how much Santos was paid.
Santos had previously told The Daily Beast he left the company on March 1, 2021.
Within weeks of the reported April 2021 payment, Santos founded the Devolder Organization, the firm through which he was paid a $750,000 salary in 2022, far surpassing his previous reported salary of $55,0000 in 2020.
A financial disclosure filed by Santos as a candidate that covered January 2021 to December 2022 did not list any payments from Harbor City Capital.
“Voters have a right to know this information,” Delaney Marsco, senior legal counsel for ethics at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, told The Post, adding that intentionally not disclosing could result in a fine or up to five years in prison. “Congress has said as much.”
An SEC complaint was filed against Harbor City Capital on April 20, 2021. The complaint, which did not name Santos, said the company’s founder spent investors’ money on personal expenses and paid them monthly interest payments in “classic Ponzi scheme fashion.”
Santos previously told The Daily Beast he did not know about what was going on at the company.
“I’m as distraught and disturbed as everyone else is,” he told the outlet in April 2022.
A representative for Santos did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
