Washington Post Confirms That George Santos Stole Multiple Dogs From Amish Farmers, Then Sold Them At Adoption Event
While the Politico story yesterday started to connect the dots between George Santos and the stolen dogs that were later sold at Santos’ adoption event, the Washington Post was able to confirm today with the defrauded Amish farmers that it was in fact Santos who stole their dogs after writing them over $15,000 worth of bad checks. Via Washington Post:
It was after dark when George A. Santos approached the farmer in Pennsylvania’s Amish country looking to buy at least eight puppies.
He promised a wire transfer of more than $5,000, the farmer said, but it never appeared. He said Santos ended up writing a smaller check — and driving off with four golden retrievers.
“Something inside me said I just cannot trust him,” the farmer told The Washington Post, speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect his privacy.
The check bounced.
The farmer, who has not previously spoken to the media, said he called police after the encounter in 2017. It took nearly two years for the authorities to locate Santos back home in New York, but he was eventually charged with theft by deception, according to a brief mention in the Star, a newspaper in York County.
[…]
The farmer whose complaint sparked the theft charge is one of four dog breeders in Amish country, flanking the Susquehanna River in southern Pennsylvania, who told The Post that they received bad checks bearing Santos’s name that month. The checks were used to buy golden retrievers, German shepherds and Yorkshire terriers. The other three breeders said they did not file police reports and were never paid.
Shown photographs of Santos, the farmer in York County and another of the breeders The Post contacted identified him as the man they said wrote the checks. Two others said they could not tell whether it was him because they had seen him only one night in the dark more than five years ago. All spoke on the condition of anonymity to guard their privacy.
Tiffany Bogosian, the lawyer friend who has stayed in touch with Santos since they attended junior high school together, said in an interview that he called her in a panic one day in February 2020, during his first run for Congress. He told her that New York City law enforcement officials had informed him that he was wanted in Pennsylvania regarding bad checks and needed to report there immediately. He sent her copies of the nine checks, she said.
Bogosian said she contacted a Pennsylvania state trooper who had been assigned to the case. In an email, she told the trooper that Santos said that he did not write the checks and that his checkbook had gone missing shortly after he opened the account.
[WaPo]
There are a lot of other sickeningly insane details at the link, so do read the full story. Santos ended up paying back one of the farmers so the theft charge could be settled and his record expunged, but he didn’t pay back any of the others from whom he stole. And, of course, since Santos paid back one of them (the farmer showed WaPo evidence of the reimbursement from Santos), this proves that Santos lied to his lawyer, who then unknowingly lied to a Pennsylvania state trooper on behalf of Santos, about his checkbook being stolen. Shocker.
