Members-Only Article
There’s now no shortage of George Santos stories — his various criminal exploits, scams, secret identities, non-existent jobs. But I read a story this evening that made me wonder if I’m living in a simulation and whether any of this can be true. The latest expose reveals that Santos once used his sham pet charity — Friends of Pets United — to set up a GoFundMe for a dog who had a tumor and needed expensive surgery. The dog’s owner, a disabled vet, didn’t have the money for the surgery for his service dog, Sapphire. A veterinarian pointed Osthoff toward Santos’s charity figuring they might be able to help with the costs. So Santos sets up a GoFundMe for Sapphire’s surgery. It raises $3,000 for the charity. Then Santos disappears with the money and the dog dies.
I read this, and maybe you read this, and think, “Okay, since Santos is such a horrible guy people are just coming out of the woodwork now with George Santos urban legends.” But read the story. It has a remarkable level of documentation. It happened!
With this latest chapter the Santos story has taken on a new level of absurdity for me. He’s like the Zelig of evil or the Forrest Gump of con men. The guy is only 34 years old. How many people did he cheat, or steal from, or stiff on a debt or con? Will people still be coming forward a year from now?
Here’s a particularly ugly part of the Sapphire story. These are texts threads between Santos and Sapphire’s owner, which were published with the original article in Patch. Santos has already been giving Osthoff the runaround and is now telling him he’s going to keep the money and give it “to the next dog.” He’s justifying his refusal to use the money for the intended purpose.
He’s blaming Osthoff, suggesting he’s trying to mooch off Santos and his charity. But note the part where Santos says how it was the credibility of Friends of Pets United that raised the money. So Sapphire doesn’t really have any claim to the money anyway.
Santos waves off Osthoff because he and his charity’s level of integrity is so high they can’t be allowing Osthoff to ride with Sapphire to the vet. Then Santos says Friends of Pets United is a 501(c)(3) and like every 501(c)(3) they have to go through exacting audits. But remember that reporting has shown that Friends of Pets United was not a 501(c)(3). While it’s difficult to prove a negative, we can be pretty certain that Friends of Pets United didn’t exist at all. But it was definitely not a 501(c)(3). So while scamming this guy out of the $3,000 raised to help save Sapphire’s life, Santos is bullying the guy about the sheer magnitude of his integrity. This is deep level sociopathy. But even that doesn’t quite capture it.
This isn’t outrage talking. It’s something between bafflement and fascination. I know there are terrible people out there and people like Santos who to me is a sort of ridiculous terrible. But so many scams and it never caught up to him? He goes from pocketing charitable contributions to raising millions and winning a House seat?
Late Update: In a rarity for Santos, he flatly denies the story. “Fake. No clue who this is,” he texted Semafor. But read the story. The confirmation is overwhelming. There are numerous social media posts from 2016 showing Santos running the GoFundMe.
