Federal Judge Grants Request to Unseal Names of Those Who Paid House Rep. George Santos' $500k Bail
A federal judge granted a request to unseal the names of the individuals who paid embattled House Rep. George Santos’ $500,000 bail, RadarOnline.com has learned.
In a sudden development to come nearly one month after a grand jury indicted Santos on 13 criminal charges on May 10, U.S. Magistrate Judge Anne Shields ruled on Tuesday that the names of the GOP congressman’s bail sponsors will be disclosed to the public.
The judge reportedly gave Santos until noon on Friday to appeal the ruling, according to the Hill, and the names will remain sealed until then.
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, the judge’s ruling came just hours after Santos proclaimed that he would rather go to jail than have the names of those who paid his half-million-dollar bail revealed.
According to a letter Santos’ attorney penned to Judge Shields on Monday, the embattled New York congressman argued that revealing the names would subject his bail cosigners to “great distress” and “physical injury.”
"Here in the instant case, the suretors are likely to suffer great distress, may lose their jobs, and God forbid, may suffer physical injury," Santos’ attorney, Joseph Murray, wrote earlier this week.
"My client would rather surrender to pretrial detainment than subject these suretors to what will inevitably come," he added.
A number of media outlets first argued last month that Judge Shields should release the names of Santos’ bail guarantors for the sake of “transparency” and "public interest."
The media organizations then formally requested the judge unseal the names of the people who cosigned House Rep. Santos’s $500,000 bond in his criminal fraud case.
"There is a compelling public interest in maintaining the greatest transparency possible in these proceedings, which involve criminal charges brought against a sitting member of the United States House of Representatives for fraud and theft of public money, among other alleged criminal conduct," the outlets wrote in a joint-letter at the time.
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As RadarOnline.com reported, Santos was arrested and indicted last month on 13 criminal charges - including fraud - connected to campaign donations the embattled congressman took during the 2022 midterm election.
The embattled GOP congressman pleaded not guilty at his arraignment hearing on May 10. He is due back in court on June 30.