CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (AP) — George Santos′ former marketing campaign treasurer was sentenced Wednesday to a few years’ probation for her function in fabricating marketing campaign finance studies for the disgraced ex-congressman from New York.
Nancy Marks, addressing a federal choose on Lengthy Island, mentioned she’d discovered from her errors, walked away from politics and began her life yet again on the age of 59.
The veteran political operative, who pleaded responsible to federal conspiracy fees final yr, mentioned she has been working nights at a warehouse and began taking programs towards a university diploma, hoping to maneuver right into a administration place.
“I thought I had found a friend in George Santos,” Marks mentioned Wednesday. “But everything about him was a lie. I thought it was a true friend and a true person. He was not.”
Marks’ lawyer, Raymond Perini, mentioned Santos got here into her life at a “vulnerable” time when her husband was dying of mind most cancers. The then-candidate ingratiated himself by claiming his mom had additionally suffered from mind most cancers and that he had the identical situation.
“He saw someone he could manipulate,” Perini mentioned. “He preyed on her weakness.”
Prosecutor Anthony Bagnuola, in arguing for 18 months in jail, mentioned Marks was “no rube,” however a seasoned political operative who offered the native contacts and “veneer of legitimacy” Santos wanted to drag off his scheme.
“There are real victims in this case, but Nancy Marks is not one of them,” he mentioned.
U.S. District Courtroom Choose Joanna Seybert mentioned she thought-about Marks’ tasks to her aged mom and the truth that she was a first-time offender in deciding to not impose jail time. However she additionally gave Marks a stern warning as she handed down her sentence, which incorporates being ordered to pay greater than $178,000 in restitution.
“You knew better and you did it anyway,” the choose mentioned. “There will be no more leniency for Nancy Marks. That’s it.”
Marks admitted to serving to Santos inflate his marketing campaign donations throughout the 2022 election cycle in an effort to hit the fundraising thresholds wanted to qualify for backing from the nationwide Republican Occasion.
Prosecutors say Marks filed marketing campaign finance studies that listed quite a lot of false donors, together with no less than 10 members of her household and Santos’ household.
The studies to the Federal Election Fee and the GOP Nationwide Committee additionally falsely claimed Santos had loaned his marketing campaign $500,000 when in actuality he didn’t have the cash to make that form of mortgage.
Marks, who confronted as much as 5 years in jail, labored on greater than 150 Republican campaigns on Lengthy Island, together with for the present head of the Environmental Safety Company, Lee Zeldin, throughout his profitable campaigns for Congress and a failed gubernatorial run.
Former U.S. Rep. George Santos arrives at federal court docket for sentencing, Friday, April 25, 2025, in Central Islip, N.Y. (AP Photograph/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Santos was sentenced final month to greater than seven years in federal jail after pleading responsible to federal wire fraud and aggravated id theft. He’s as a consequence of report back to jail July 25.
Sam Miele, a former fundraiser for Santos, was sentenced in March to at least one yr and someday in jail for his function within the marketing campaign fraud, which included impersonating a high-ranking congressional aide.
Santos served lower than a yr in Congress earlier than changing into simply the sixth member of the Home to be ousted by colleagues after it was revealed he’d fabricated a lot of his life story.
The political unknown had painted himself as a profitable enterprise proprietor who labored at prestigious Wall Road corporations, when in actuality he was struggling financially.
The revelations led to congressional and felony inquiries into how he had funded his marketing campaign.
