WASHINGTON — Long Island Rep. George Santos’ love affair with Fibbing began long before his successful House campaign, according to his former live-in boyfriend.
As local and federal prosecutors are investigating whether the 34-year-old Republican broke the law with his deception, his ex-girlfriend Pedro Vilalba told the New York Times that Santos’ dishonesty tendencies claimed to date back nearly ten years.
Vilalba was just 18 when she started dating Santos, who was 26 at the time, in 2014. At the time, the newspaper reported that Vilalba was a “young and gullible” person who wanted to believe the story told by the future MP.
A few months into their relationship, Santos reportedly suggested that the two move in together.
“He never really went to work,” Vilalba told the newspaper. “He said he would get the money from Citigroup, but he was an investor. One day it’s another, one day it’s another.”
Still, the young man found Santos “charming and sweet” and felt “on top of the world” in the new relationship, the report said. That would change in early 2015, when a future congressman surprised Billalba with a ticket to Hawaii that “turned out to be non-existent.”
Around the same time, Vilarva said his mobile phone went missing and he began to suspect that Santos had pawned it. Angered by the betrayal, Vilalba told the newspaper that he entered Santos’ name into a search engine, which revealed he was wanted by Brazilian police on suspicion of writing fraudulent checks.
“I woke up in the morning, packed all my belongings in a garbage bag, called my father and left the house,” Vilalba told the newspaper.
Santos last week admitted to the Post that he lied about multiple allegations he made during the campaign, including working at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup and graduating from Baruch College. didn’t graduate from high school, let alone college, but he said he had a GED.
Santos has continued to deny any legal wrongdoing, telling the Post last week, “He’s not a criminal here — not here, not in Brazil, not in any jurisdiction in the world.”
“It would be intimidating to put someone in power like him in charge,” Vilarva told the New York Times.
If Vilalba’s account is true, the relationship is likely to end after the first openly gay non-incumbent Republican elected to the House of Representatives claimed he was married to a woman from 2012 until they divorced in 2017. It raises further questions about the personal history of
Santos is scheduled to take the oath of office when Congress convenes on Tuesday. He announced plans to use his swearing-in ceremony as a dubious fundraiser.