The names of the three co-signers who helped pay the $500,000 bail for Rep. George Santos (R-NY) last month were unsealed on Thursday despite efforts from the freshman lawmaker to keep the identities of the guarantors anonymous.
The court order reveals the signatures of two of the co-signers who helped pay his bond: his father Gercino Dos Santos and his aunt Elma Santos Preven. All other identifying information in the order was redacted from public access.
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The revelation comes after several media organizations pushed the judge to unseal the names of the three individuals who helped secure Santos’s bail after he was charged on 13 criminal counts in May. Defense attorneys for Santos filed a motion on Monday requesting the court keep the records sealed, arguing the guarantors would likely “suffer great distress, may lose their jobs, and God forbid, may suffer physical injury” if they were publicly identified.
At least one co-signer backed out of the financial commitment due to “media frenzy,” a lawyer for Santos wrote in a court filing. It’s likely the third guarantor was also a relative after an attorney for Santos argued the payments were not an ethics violation because they were made by immediate relatives.
However, U.S. Magistrate Judge Anne Shields ruled against Santos on Tuesday, ordering the information to be released publicly at noon on Thursday. The order gave Santos two days to consider changing the conditions of his release in order to keep the names secret, but he did not do so.
Lawmakers on the House Ethics Committee also requested the names of the individuals as part of an inquiry into the payment, although Santos’s legal team has not provided that information, according to court filings. The Ethics Committee opened an investigation into the matter after the House voted to refer it to the panel, temporarily saving Santos from a high-profile expulsion.
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House Democrats have since pressed members on the ethics panel to release a report on their preliminary findings, introducing a resolution earlier this week that would reveal whether Santos disclosed the names of his guarantors to the committee during their investigation — and if so, direct the members to reveal them to the full House.
Santos was released on a $500,000 bond after he was indicted by the Justice Department on seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds, and two counts of making materially false statements to the House of Representatives. Santos has pleaded not guilty to the charges and has denounced the allegations as being politically motivated.
