George Santos hit with 10 new criminal counts in superseding indictment

New York Republican Rep. George Santos is facing an additional 10 criminal counts related to his campaign after federal prosecutors announced a superseding indictment against the lawmaker.

Santos in May pleaded not guilty to 13 counts, including wire fraud, money laundering, and stealing public funds. He secured release on a $500,000 bond but may only travel between New York and Washington, D.C., without court approval.

The Department of Justice announced the additional charges on Tuesday, outlining an alleged scheme in which he inflated his campaign's fundraising numbers in reports to the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) to qualify for a national party committee program that provides aid to candidates.

"As alleged, Santos is charged with stealing people’s identities and making charges on his own donors’ credit cards without their authorization, lying to the FEC and, by extension, the public about the financial state of his campaign.  Santos falsely inflated the campaign’s reported receipts with non-existent loans and contributions that were either fabricated or stolen," said U.S. Attorney for Easter New York Breon Peace. "This Office will relentlessly pursue criminal charges against anyone who uses the electoral process as an opportunity to defraud the public and our government institutions."

A second scheme involved his alleged theft of donors' financial information and use of it to charge their credit cards repeatedly without consent. He then allegedly masked the additional contributions by creating fraudulent, nonexistent donors.

He is next due back in court on Oct. 27.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.