George Santos, the former congressman whose proclivity for lying fueled an unforeseen rise and spectacular fall, will be confronted on Friday with the precise fallout of his criminal case.
Mr. Santos will be sentenced on Friday to a prison term of no less than two years after pleading guilty to charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
Federal prosecutors have asked the judge to impose a sentence of 87 months, which they said was necessary “to protect the public from being defrauded by Santos again.”
The final decision rests with Judge Joanna Seybert, who will weigh the severity of Mr. Santos’s crimes against the authenticity of his remorse. She will also decide whether he will be immediately remanded into custody, or given the opportunity to report to prison at a later date.
Mr. Santos last year pleaded guilty to charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft and admitted to a host of other schemes including money-laundering, lying to Congress and fraudulently receiving unemployment benefits.
Lawyers for Mr. Santos have requested that he receive 24 months in prison, the minimum federal sentence for aggravated identity theft. They stressed the nonviolent nature of Mr. Santos’s crime, writing in a letter to the court that “his conduct, though involving dishonesty and abuse of trust, stemmed largely from a misguided desperation related to his political campaign, rather than inherent malice.”
They are also pushing for the roughly $200,000 of ill-gotten funds that Mr. Santos forfeited to be counted toward the $373,000 in restitution he owes his victims.
Prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York framed Mr. Santos, 36, as an unrepentant swindler who had repeatedly returned to a criminal lifestyle, growing more audacious with every passing year. And while Mr. Santos expressed contrition in court, they argued his posts to X.com attacking the Department of Justice and portraying himself as a victim of prosecutorial overreach belied any genuine remorse.
“His actions speak louder than any words, and they cry out for a significant carceral sentence in this case,” prosecutors wrote in a supplemental memo.
During his time in the public eye, Mr. Santos has evolved from political upstart to national punchline, from avatar of Washington dysfunction to a pop culture villain. Under pressure to repay victims and fund his defense, he has sought to monetize his infamy, beginning with personalized videos on the website Cameo.
In December, he began a podcast, “Pants on Fire,” its title a winking allusion to Mr. Santos’s lies about, among other things, his education, work history and even a volleyball career at Baruch College.
The pattern of lies led some of his Republican colleagues in the House to lead the charge to expel Mr. Santos from Congress. The push came after a House Ethics Committee report found that he had stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars of donors’ money — at least some of which he spent on luxury goods and Botox.
Through it all, Mr. Santos has maintained a veneer of confidence, self-effacing humor and transgressive glee. He also has shown a continuing loyalty to President Trump, in seeming hopes that he might receive a pardon as others have since Mr. Trump re-entered the White House.
But the president has not shown any sympathy to Mr. Santos thus far. Indeed, it was his Justice Department that pushed for the 87-month sentence, and on Wednesday, Mr. Santos said that he would not ask Mr. Trump to intercede on his behalf.
“The president knows my predicament. It’s not like it’s a secret,” he said in an interview. “If the president thinks I’m worthy of any level of clemency that is bestowed upon him, he can go ahead and do it, but for me to seek a pardon is to deny accountability and responsibility.”
But those who are personally acquainted with Mr. Santos may be less likely to buy his penitent pose.
“I wouldn’t trust a word out of his mouth,” said Peter Hamilton, who knew Mr. Santos some 10 years ago.
A decade ago Mr. Hamilton lent Mr. Santos, then known as Anthony Devolder, several thousand dollars for a down payment on an apartment. Shortly afterward, Mr. Santos begin ducking his calls. And though Mr. Hamilton pushed for years, even getting an order from small claims court, he was never repaid until his one-time friend was vaulted into the public eye as a member of Congress engulfed in scandal.
Even so, Mr. Hamilton had little sympathy for his former friend. “He betrayed the trust of the public and won a House seat by being a con man,” he said. Even a seven-year sentence, he added, was “too little.”