Rep. George Santos, the New York Republican whose 2022 election to the House of Representatives flipped a seat previously held by a Democrat, faces pressure to resign for having reportedly lied extensively about his education, employment history, and religious heritage. He also faces allegations that he may have participated in financial fraud.
When Santos apologized for having “embellished” his resume, he also said, “We do stupid things in life.”
Because I’m a nonprofit accounting scholar, what has really caught my eye are the reports that Santos fabricated a charity. On an early version of his campaign website, the freshman lawmaker claimed to have founded and run what has been alleged to be a fake nonprofit animal rescue group called Friends of Pets United.
Santos says the group rescued 2,400 dogs and 280 cats and that it trapped, neutered, and released over 3,000 cats from 2013 to 2018. Trouble is, there’s no evidence that has been presented publicly showing the charity ever existed.
As media outlets have reported, Friends of Pets United has no website. There’s no record of the Internal Revenue Service granting the organization nonprofit status or of a group by that name annually filing the required paperwork with the IRS. And it is further alleged that a fundraising event he held with another New Jersey animal rescue group never received any of the funds it was promised.
Fake Charities Are a Real Problem
If Santos’s animal rescue turns out to be the scam it…
