By Philip Marcelo
Central ISLIP, NY (AP)-A former campaign collection for the former United States Representative George Santos was sentenced to one year and a day in prison on Friday for usurped in the identity of a high-ranking congress assistant while collecting money for the New York Republican in disgrace.
Sam Miele pleaded guilty in 2023 to a single fraud leader by federal thread for his role in the criminal case which led to the expulsion of Santos of his functions.
The native of New Jersey, 28, admitted that in 2021, he asked for donations under the name of Dan Meyer, then head of American staff, Kevin McCarthy, a Californian republican who continued to serve less than a year as a speaker of the chamber before leaving the Congress in 2023.
Prosecutors said Miele’s identity included setting up a dummy email address resembling Meyer while contacting more than a dozen donors.
Miele also admitted having committed fraud on the access device by invoicing credit cards without authorization to send money to Santos campaigns and other political candidates, and for its personal use. This fraud totaled around $ 100,000, prosecutors said.
Miele experienced more than two years in prison, but her lawyers, in a court court before the hearing on Friday, argued that he should be sentenced to probation or the interior residence.
They argued that Miele had no previous criminal record, quickly recognized her reprehensible acts and cooperated with the investigators.
His lawyers also cited dozens of letters of support from family and friends, claiming that he had allowed his ambition to succeed in politics to “overwhelm his good judgment, his common sense and the ethical principles”.
“Sam Miele is a young man who made a bad mistake,” they wrote. “But his criminal conduct is not revealing of the person he is. Rather, it represents a complete gap compared to what was otherwise a young life marked by integrity, kindness and service to others. »»
The prosecutors, in their memo of determination of the sentence, recommended a sentence lower than the federal directives, who, according to them, called for 27 to 33 months in prison.
Miele, in her advocacy agreement, agreed to pay around $ 109,000 on return, losing an additional $ 69,000 and paying $ 470,000 payment to a contributor to the campaign.
Miele was one of the two campaign assistants to conclude an adviser on advocacy in the federal investigation into the winning campaign of Santos.
Nancy Marks, his former campaign treasurer, pleaded guilty to a fraud conspiracy accusation. She faces the conviction in May.
Santos, for his part, is expected to be sentenced next month after pleading guilty last August for thread the aggravated fraud and theft, just a few weeks before he was tried last year.
The 36 -year -old man admitted that he had stolen credit card numbers from several people and billed them for donations to his campaign, used from the cash campaign to creative clothing and other personal expenses, wrongly perceived unemployment benefits while working and lied about his personal wealth in financial disclosure at the Congress.
When he pleaded his guilty plea, Santos blamed the ambition of having scrambled his judgment.
The unknown then political gained notoriety to return a congress district which covered a rich strip of queens and long Island in 2022.
But his fantastic lies about her wealth and history were quickly demystified.
Among other things, Santos lied about the career in the best companies of Wall Street and a university diploma. He also falsely said that his mother died during the September 11 attacks and that his grandparents had fled the holocaust.
Less than a year after taking office, Santos was expelled from the American house, becoming the sixth never started from the room.
Follow Philip Marcelo at Twitter.com/philmarcelo.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
