Good morning. It’s Friday. Today we’ll look at former Representative George Santos’s sentencing. We’ll also find out how the Broadway star Nicole Scherzinger coped when the sound system failed before curtain time for “Sunset Boulevard.”
Is this it for George Santos? Has his moment finally passed?
I asked my colleague Grace Ashford, who has covered Santos and his fabulism since before his swearing-in as a congressman, his resignation, his indictment and his sometimes cheesy attempts at reinvention, like recording video greetings on the website Cameo. (That doesn’t seem to be going well right now. His personalized videos were on sale for 67 percent off earlier this week.)
“I feel like I’ve been a real student of him and his many moods,” Grace said, and when she called him on Wednesday for an article about the sentencing hearing that is scheduled for today, his mood was different. “He always has a plan and a story that he’s telling,” she said, “and the story that he was telling — this week, at least — was that he was done fighting.”
That did not sound like the Santos of just two years ago, when, as she wrote, “even when he was lying, there was a certain charm to his unshakable confidence, his self-effacing humor, his transgressive glee.” The Santos of two years ago understood that there was entertainment value in the way his congressional career had flamed out. Our critic Amanda Hess wrote that “his misdeeds came to feel both absurd and relatable” to his audience. Santos’s saga was fun while it lasted. It was also cringe-worthy.
On Wednesday, Santos said he was taking responsibility for what he called “all of my self-inflicted wounds.” He had said something similar last year when he pleaded guilty to charges that included wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. “I accept full responsibility for my actions,” he told the judge as he admitted to swindling donors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, lying to Congress and fraudulently collecting unemployment.
He told Grace that he would not seek a pardon from President Trump. That, too, suggests remorse and responsibility-taking, even as he complained that “Merrick Garland holdovers” were still handling his case. (Garland was the attorney general in the Biden administration.)
But for once, Grace said, Santos seemed to be “living in reality.” He “said he seemed ashamed of what he had put his family and friends through and said that shame was why he would not seek a pardon,” she said. “But I couldn’t help but notice that his sincere remorse was the only thing standing between a 24-month sentence, the minimum, and one of over seven years.”
Prosecutors for the Eastern District of New York have asked for 87 months — seven years three months — as they argued that Santos “remains unrepentant.” They quoted some of Santos’s posts on the social media platform X. In one he claimed that a “cabal of pedophiles” was “running around in every power structure in the world including the US Government.”
“It should go without saying that this message — which signals defiance and victimhood while characterizing the federal government as a ‘cabal of pedophiles’ — is hardly an expression of ‘genuine remorse,’” the prosecutors wrote. “Nor was the message he posted two hours later, which again smacked of perceived victimhood.”
“Put plainly,” the prosecutors added, “Santos is not genuinely remorseful, despite accepting responsibility” as part of his plea deal.
Santos countered in a letter to the judge that “the government appears determined to shape my narrative through assumptions and misinterpretations of my online activity.” He also said that saying he was taking responsibility for his actions was “not a scripted contrition” but “the culmination of months of bruising self-examination.”
Judge Joanna Seybert will announce Santos’s sentence today. The length will determine where he serves his time: “If he’s sentenced to more than four years,” Grace said, “he won’t be eligible for the nicest, cushiest federal prison.”
Santos will not know when he gets up and gets dressed this morning whether he will return home tonight or head to prison. That, too, is up to the judge. She could remand him to custody immediately or tell him to turn himself in at an agreed-upon later date.
Weather
Today will be mostly sunny with a high near 76. This evening will bring clouds and a 70 percent chance of showers, with a low around 59.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
In effect until May 26 (Memorial Day).
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On Broadway, bullhorn in hand
The sound system failed at the St. James Theater before curtain time for “Sunset Boulevard” on Wednesday afternoon. What to do?
The actress Nicole Scherzinger grabbed a bullhorn and sang one of the best-known songs from the show, “With One Look.”
“When it became apparent they couldn’t do the show, it was her idea to go out and speak to the audience, so she and Tom Francis came out,” said Rick Miramontez, a spokesman for the show, referring to one of Scherzinger’s co-stars.
The show was then canceled, and audience members were given a letter offering them a refund.
“It was very disappointing, because we booked this a long time ago,” said Emily Feurring, a nutritionist who was in the audience, “but it was also kind of exciting because it was a New York moment, and no one else will ever get that.”
My colleague Michael Paulson writes that the way Scherzinger handled it was reminiscent of other times when Broadway stars improvised when technical issues delayed performances. At the St. James, the problem was fixed later that afternoon, and the Wednesday evening show went on as scheduled, with Oprah Winfrey in the audience.
METROPOLITAN diary
Toasted
Dear Diary:
I was having breakfast at the Hampton Inn at J.F.K. The man in front of me had stuffed an entire bagel into one slot of the toaster and was struggling to pull it out.
When he reached for the metal tongs, I suggested we unplug the toaster.
When he finally extracted the bagel, it was in pieces. As he walked off, he thanked me.
“No problem,” I said, “I’m a mom.”
“I’m a surgeon,” he replied.
He certainly wasn’t an electrician.
— Barbara Howard
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you Monday. — J.B.
P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.
Makaelah Walters and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
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James Barron writes the New York Today newsletter, a morning roundup of what’s happening in the city.
The post Moment of Truth for Santos as He Faces Sentencing appeared first on New York Times.
