Texas man charged with trying to scam George Santos

The man allegedly tried to scam three other high-profile individuals, including a professional athlete, actor and musician

Federal prosecutors charged a man for allegedly trying to scam George Santos — the former New York Congressman who now faces his own federal charges — by offering “false promises” in exchange for cash.

An FBI affidavit states that Hector Medina Jr — an El Paso, Texas resident who also goes by Michael Soto — devised a “scheme to defraud certain publicly known persons facing criminal exposure.” He was charged in the Eastern District of New York.

Mr Medina Jr allegedly approached individuals who were facing criminal charges and claimed he could cause their “criminal exposure to disappear in exchange for large sums of money,” the affidavit states.

The filing listed four high-profile figures, including Mr Santos, who is not named but identified as “Individual-1” who represented New York’s third congressional district. In 2023, Mr Santos was accused of stealing his donors’ credit cards and wire fraud, among other charges before being expelled from Congress.

Mr Medina Jr sent videos and texts offering his services, the charging document states.

For example, in a July 2023 video, Mr Medina Jr claimed that he worked “with prosecutors and judges…I was contacted by some people to reach out to you and see if you wanted to cut a deal…If you’re interested, I can get everything dropped, evidence that is on you removed, disappeared.”

In addition to Mr Santos, Mr Medina Jr also allegedly contacted an “actor who had been convicted of felonies in California in May 2023,” the actor’s spouse, a “musician who had been arrested in June 2023,” and a professional athlete.

Mr Medina Jr admitted to law enforcement in an interview in December 2023 that he “searched the Internet for individuals who were in trouble believing that they would be easy targets for his scheme,” explaining he was in search of cash to settle the more than $100,000 that he owed in gambling debts.

The affidavit noted that Medina has a history of prior criminal convictions for “theft and fraudulent activity.”