Rep. George Santos is seeking to keep private the identities of the people who guaranteed his bail bond by appealing a federal magistrate judge’s ruling earlier this week that ordered their names be made public.
via: Radar Online
Embattled House Rep. George Santos said this week that he would rather go to jail than have a judge disclose who paid his $500,000 bail, RadarOnline.com has learned.
In the latest development to come roughly one month after a grand jury indicted Santos on 13 criminal charges including fraud on May 10, the 34-year-old GOP House Rep. reportedly begged the judge overseeing the matter not to reveal who paid his half-million-dollar bail.
According to a letter he penned to U.S. Judge Anne Shields on Monday, Santos argued that revealing the names would subject his bail guarantors to “great distress” and “physical injury.”
“Here in the instant case, the suretors are likely to suffer great distress, may lose their jobs, and God forbid, may suffer physical injury,” Santos’ lawyer, Joseph Murray, wrote on Monday.
“My client would rather surrender to pretrial detainment than subject these suretors to what will inevitably come,” Murray added.
Also shocking were Murray’s claims that he and Santos became victims of harassment following the revelation a group of anonymous individuals paid the congressman’s $500,000 bail and that both Santos and his lawyer received death threats following the news.
Murray then argued that Santos’ bail guarantors would also suffer the same alleged treatment should the judge order their names to be disclosed.
“There is little doubt that the suretors will suffer some unnecessary form of retaliation if their identities and employment are revealed,” Santos’ lawyer wrote.
“The fact that someone emailed me my own letter back to me soon after I filed it with the Court, tells us that they are just ready and waiting to pounce,” Murray continued. “A few hours later on Friday, June 2, 2023, I received a call wherein a male voice just shouted what sounded like, ‘Who paid Santo’s bond?’”
“Again, they are just waiting to pounce on the suretors.”
Meanwhile, a number of media outlets have argued that Judge Shields should release the names of Santos’ bail guarantors for the sake of “transparency” and public interest.
“There is a compelling public interest in maintaining the greatest transparency possible in these proceedings, which involve criminal charges brought against a sitting member of the United States House of Representatives for fraud and theft of public money, among other alleged criminal conduct,” the outlets wrote in a letter to the judge last month.
Judge Shields has yet to rule whether the names will be revealed to the public.
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Santos was arrested and indicted last month on 13 criminal charges, including fraud.
The embattled GOP congressman pleaded not guilty at his arraignment hearing on May 10, and Santos is due back in court on June 30.
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