Santos Has Fallen Out With Ex-Partner, NY-03 GOP Candidate Mike LiPetri
Today at 3pm (ET), George Santos is expected to plead guilty to at least some of the 23 charges he’s facing as part of a plea deal he finally agreed to with federal prosecutors. The parameters of the plea deal are still closely held, although previous leaks indicated that Santos was “demanding” that he get no prison time and that he retain the right to his story for books, TV and films (at the very least in Brazilian Portuguese). The federal case was so airtight that it is very unlikely that any of those demands are the basis for today’s guilty plea. We'll see but I'm pretty certain he’s going to prison.
After Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), another serial MAGA congressional jaw-dropping spectacle, lost his House seat, he moved down to Florida and pretty much disappeared from the national stage. What a loss! But on slow news days he occasionally appears in “Florida Man” reports in newspapers, the last being this one in April, right above a story about one of his fellow Floridians using a live alligator to open a beer can:
But I'm pretty certain this won't be George Santos’ fate. My gut tells me his story is far more compelling, salient and entertaining and that we can expect to see plenty of him going forward. A Broadway musical is an obvious place to start but a Netflix mini-series and a feature film are almost inevitable. I expect Santos will use his time in prison to work on his version of Mein Kampf. Unfortunately, I’m also guessing there will be no Cameo videos being made while he’s behind bars.
Damned, I was so looking forward to the trial— which was due to start in 2 weeks— but I knew the plug would be pulled at the last minute. An inevitable guilty verdict after an actual trial would have meant as much as two decades in prison— and not in a Club Fed. Now he’ll probably get, maybe 18 months… and in the easiest of possible incarcerations.
The Republican running against Tom Suozzi for Santos’ old seat this year is Hate Talk radio host and crackpot gun lobbyist Mike LiPetri, a typical MAGA loudmouth trying to capitalize on Trump’s unique connection to America’s… um, let’s use a Dostoevsky book like The Possessed or The Idiot. LiPetri and Santos were once very much in bed together but that seems to have gone terribly wrong after a “Nigerian prince” type rip-off scheme the two cooked up went wrong. Unless New York allows convicted felons serving time in prison to vote, it won’t matter, but judging by the intensity of his animus towards LiPetri, it wouldn’t surprise me if Santos had decided to vote for Suozzi.
UPDATE: Santos Is Going To Prison
Even before the unfashionable Santos showed up in court to plead guilty, his day was off to a rocky start. Another judge, in another court, threw out his lawsuit against Jimmy Kimmel in a Cameo case the court ruled was in effect baseless and frivolous. The Feds let him off with a guilty plea for just 2 of his 23 charges (wire fraud and aggravated identity theft). Aggravated identity theft carries a 2 year mandatory minimum term. He also agreed to pay over $370,000 in restitution to his victims and is subject to a forfeiture order of more than $205,000. The sentencing will be on February 7th.
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