Disgraced ex-U.S. Rep. George Santos, whose 87-month federal prison sentence for fraud and identity theft was commuted by President Donald Trump in October, is now under another federal investigation for alleged insider trading on the popular betting app Kalshi, according to reports.
The investigation is into Santos allegedly placing bets on Kalshi, a federally regulated prediction market where users can bet on real-world events, that he would not attend the president’s State of the Union address in February. Users were placing bets in the millions of dollars on who would and would not be in attendance at the address.
Leading up to the State of the Union, Santos had posted on social media that he would be in attendance. But after the address had already begun, Santos posted on social media that he was unable to attend and was watching the event live from an airport.
But according to reports, Santos had placed bets on Kalshi that he himself would not attend the address. The bets were flagged by Kalshi, who reported the trading to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Department of Justice and froze his account. Both departments have opened investigations into this report, according to reports.
The alleged incident occurred just four months after Santos was released from federal prison after serving 12 weeks of his 87-month sentence for identity theft and wire fraud. His early release is due to Trump issuing a commutation of his sentence, who said the former representative was a governmental “rogue” and had been “horribly mistreated” while incarcerated.
Santos, who represented New York’s 3rd Congressional District on the North Shore of Nassau County and northeastern Queens, was elected in November 2022. He was expelled in December 2023 after House Ethics investigations into allegations of his unethical and illegal activities, which began shortly after his election.
Santos was indicted in May 2023 on 13 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and making materially false statements to Congress.
In court, Santos admitted to falsifying campaign fund numbers to meet Federal Election Commission benchmarks and get proper funding from the Republican National Committee — something his campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks, pleaded guilty to.
He also admitted to applying for unemployment benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic despite not being unemployed. He also admitted to using the names of friends and family members to do this, which is the basis for the wire fraud and identity theft charges.
His original seven-year punishment represented the combination of two consecutive sentences for the two counts he pleaded guilty to. He was also required to pay $373,000 in restitution to his victims.
Source: LI Press
