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One of the very first lies George Santos<\/strong> was exposed<\/a> for was the one in which he claimed to have worked at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. \u201cMy sins here are embellishing my r\u00e9sum\u00e9,\u201d\u00a0he said in an interview in December, before it would come out that he did a lot<\/a> more<\/a> than<\/a> that<\/a>. When he stated on the campaign trail that he\u2019d worked for the banks, he claimed, what he\u2019d meant was that a company he had<\/em> worked for, LinkBridge Investors, did business with the financial firms. The lie, he insisted, was merely a \u201cpoor choice of words.\u201d But as it turns out, he didn\u2019t just speak imprecisely\u2014a.k.a. lie\u2014about working at Goldman and Citigroup to would-be voters; he also lied about it to a judge\u2014in a court of law\u2014for a friend who apparently has just as much trouble telling the truth as he does.<\/p>\n Politico reports<\/a> that while appearing in a Seattle courtroom for the 2017 bail hearing of a \u201cfamily friend\u201d who\u2019d later plead guilty to felony access device fraud, Santos was asked by King County Superior Court judge Sean O\u2019Donnell<\/strong> who he worked for. \u201cI am an aspiring politician and I work for Goldman Sachs,\u201d Santos responded.<\/p>\n \u201cYou work for Goldman Sachs in New York?\u201d the judge asked.<\/p>\n \u201cYup,\u201d Santos replied.<\/p>\n Not surprisingly, that wasn\u2019t the only lie Santos told that day.<\/p>\n Per Politico:<\/p>\n Santos appeared at the 2017 hearing on behalf of [Gustavo Ribeiro] Trelha<\/strong> using his full name, George Anthony Devolder Santos. He told the judge he would secure \u201ca long extended-stay apartment through Airbnb\u201d in Seattle during the case if the defendant was released on bail. \u201cHow do you know this man?\u201d the judge asked. \u201cWe\u2019re family friends. Our parents know each other from Brazil,\u201d Santos said\u2026. In a telephone interview, Trelha said Santos lied about their relationship, too. Trelha, through a translator, said he met Santos in the fall of 2016 on a Facebook group for Brazilians living in Orlando, Fla., and that his mother died in 2012.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n And if you\u2019re wondering if the guy Santos went to bat for despite barely knowing was simply a low-level con artist being unfairly persecuted, wonder no more:<\/p>\n A federal prosecutor who ultimately handled the case described the fraud as \u201csophisticated,\u201d saying Trelha\u2019s three-day skimming spree in Seattle was only \u201cthe tip of the iceberg,\u201d according to a court transcript\u00a0first reported by CBS News\u2026. When Trelha was arrested on April 27, he was caught on a security camera removing skimming equipment from a Chase ATM on Pike Street in downtown Seattle. He had a fake Brazilian ID card and 10 suspected fraudulent cards in his hotel room, according to arrest documents. An empty Fed-Ex package police found in his rental car was sent from the Winter Park apartment he shared with Santos. Trelha declined to say who sent the package from the apartment.<\/p>\n His plan was to spend a week skimming numbers and making fraudulent cards using gift cards bought at stores, Trelha said, and then another week taking out the maximum ATM withdrawals with pin numbers captured by the skimmers and cameras he installed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n An attorney for Santos did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Politico.<\/p>\n\n
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