George Santos in federal custody as feds unseal 13-count indictment

The Justice Department on Wednesday unsealed federal charges against Rep. George Santos and the New York Republican is in custody after turning himself in.

He was taken into custody in Melville on Long Island, where the FBI is housed. From there, he was taken to the courthouse in Central Islip.

Santos is expected to appear later Wednesday at federal court in New York’s Eastern District.

Santos has been indicted on 13 counts, including seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds, and two counts of making materially false statements to the House of Representatives, federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York said Wednesday.

Investigators have been focusing on Santos' financial disclosures, according to sources.

In a series of campaign disclosure amendments filed in January, Santos marked two loans that he had previously reported as loans from himself, $500,000 from March 2022 and $125,000 from October 2022 as not from "personal funds from the candidate."

In a previous version of his campaign disclosure, the $500,000 was reported as a loan from George Anthony Devolder-Santos, with a checked box indicating it was from "personal funds of the candidate." But in an amendment to that report filed earlier this year, that box was left unchecked.

Santos, who was elected in November to represent New York's 3rd Congressional District, has been under mounting scrutiny over his finances with 2022 disclosures indicating millions in assets after previously disclosing less than $60,000 in income in 2020.