(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . George Santos was accused of writing more than $15,000 in bad checks for puppies back in 2017 [1] ['Daily Kos Staff', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-09 According to a report from Politico, back in 2017, a year before George Santos would close down his supposed pet charity, the newest House Republican was charged with theft in Pennsylvania’s Amish country. According to the report, checks in his name were written to private dog breeders, but the checks bounced. He was able to get out of this little pickle because of a seemingly lucky chance meeting with an old classmate from junior high. Attorney Tiffany Bogosian, who attended middle school with Santos but eventually fell out of touch with her classmate, ran into him at a Queens Starbucks in late 2019, she told POLITICO. Santos told her he just lost a bid for Congress. Several weeks later, she said, Santos asked for help: He’d been awakened by a 4 a.m. knock on the door of his Queens home from NYPD officers who served him with an extradition warrant related to the Pennsylvania theft charge, he told her. On Feb. 15, 2020 she said he stopped by Bogosian’s New York office, where she tried to help him with some legal advice as a friend. Bogosian then says she sent a letter arguing his case: He had canceled the checks because he lost his checkbook. The checks also reportedly had different signatures than the one on Santos’ driver’s license. And then, because Santos couldn’t run for political office with an outstanding warrant (or so Bogosian relays to Politico), he finally went down to Pennsylvania to speak with prosecutors about the outstanding charge. While there, he told his old school chum he was able to get them to drop the charges after telling them he “worked for the S.E.C.” Bogosian also told The Washington Post about how she connected Santos with a client of hers that had received a personal injury settlement. This was when Santos was working for a company that the Securities and Exchange Commission would call a “classic Ponzi scheme” less than one year later: the Florida-based Harbor City Capital investment firm. Bogosian and her client attended Santos’ pitch to try and get $300,000 out of them. Both Bogosian and her client were weirded out by the experience and the client ultimately decided not to invest. Bogosian says Santos yelled at her on the phone after the potential deal fell through. What makes George Santos unique in the public sphere is how bald-faced a liar he is. This is not to say that people like Donald Trump or Lindsey Graham or Mitch McConnell or any number of politicians aren’t outrageous liars: They are. What is most fascinating (like a roadside accident fascinating) about Santos/Devolder is that his lies have not a kernel of truth to them. Most liars, like Trump, have vague grains of truth attached to their lies—something for their financial victims to rationalize. Santos doesn’t even do that. The fact that George Santos has not been ostracized by the conservative movement entirely says all one needs to know about the Republican Party’s rejection of the common reality we all share. Sarah Longwell is a longtime Republican strategist and prominent never-Trumper. Her podcast, The Focus Group, is a peek at the thousands of hours of focus groups she has conducted all across the country. Sarah comes on to give her thoughts about the state of the current Republican Party and why its future remains bleak. x Embedded Content RELATED STORIES: A formerly homeless vet, once scammed by Rep. Santos out of $3,000 for his dying dog, gets new puppy New report says there's another lie on top of George Santos' lie about his mother on 9/11 Now the Brazilian media is digging into Santos and finding even more lies, as he refuses to resign George Santos' donors appear even more fake than Santos, criminal investigation likely underway [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/9/2152102/-George-Santos-was-accused-of-writing-more-than-15-000-in-bad-checks-for-puppies-back-in-2017 Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/