George Santos judge to unseal names of people who paid lying rep’s $500K bond
By Josh Christenson
June 6, 2023 2:43pm
A New York federal judge ordered the unsealing of the identities of two people who cosigned a $500,000 unsecured bond for Rep. George Santos (R-NY) in his criminal fraud case — one day after the lying congressman’s lawyer said his client would rather go to jail than give up the information.
US Magistrate Judge Anne Y. Shields ruled Tuesday that the names of the bond suretors who helped secure the release the indicted Long Island congressman before his trial will be unsealed at noon Friday — unless an appeal comes from Santos’ legal team before then.
The 34-year-old Republican’s attorney, Joseph Murray, petitioned Shields on Monday to shield access to the suretors’ identities, saying they may “suffer great distress” at their public outing, including potentially losing their jobs or being physically harmed.
“My client would rather surrender to pretrial detainment than subject these suretors to what will inevitably come,” he wrote in a letter to the judge.
Murray also requested that the guarantors be given time to withdraw their names as cosigners if they are unmasked, citing death threats that the representative’s staff have fielded since his release.
Last month, an attorney for the New York Times and a separate legal firm representing other news outlets such as the Washington Post and CNN had requested the identities be disclosed.
more
https://nypost.com/2023/06/06/george-santos-judge-to-unseal-records-of-who-paid-reps-bond/
