George Santos wants jury pool in his fraud trial questioned over their opinions of him

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (AP) — Former U.S. Rep. George Santos wants potential jurors in his September fraud trial to be questioned about their opinions of him.

The request is among a number of issues a judge is expected to consider during a Tuesday hearing in federal court on Long Island. Santos has pleaded not guilty to a range of financial crimes, including lying to Congress about his wealth, collecting unemployment benefits while actually working and using campaign contributions to pay for such personal expenses as designer clothing.

The New York Republican’s lawyers argue in recent court filings that the written form “concerning potential jurors’ knowledge, beliefs, and preconceptions” is needed because of the extensive negative media coverage surrounding Santos, who was expelled from Congress in December after an ethics investigation found “overwhelming evidence” he’d broken the law and exploited his public position for his own profit.

They cite more than 1,500 articles by major news outlets and a " Saturday Night Live " skit about Santos. They also note similar questionnaires were used in other high profile federal cases in New York, including the trial of notorious drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

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“For all intents and purposes, Santos has already been found guilty in the court of public opinion,” the defense memo filed last week reads. “This pervasive and prejudicial publicity creates a substantial likelihood that potential jurors have been exposed to inadmissible and biased information, and have already formed a negative opinion about Santos, thereby jeopardizing his right to a fair trial.”

But prosecutors, voicing their opposition in a legal brief Friday, argue Santos’ request is simply a delay tactic, as the trial date was set more than nine months ago and some 850 prospective jurors have already been summoned to appear at the courthouse on Sept. 9.

The public perception of Santos, they argue, is also “largely a product of his own making” as he’s spent months “courting the press and ginning up” media attention.

“His attempt to complicate and delay these proceedings through the use of a lengthy, cumbersome, and time-consuming questionnaire is yet another example of Santos attempting to use his public persona as both a sword and a shield,” they wrote. “The Court must not permit him to do so.”

Santos’ lawyers, who didn’t respond to an email seeking comment, also asked in their legal filing last week for the court to consider a partially anonymous jury for the upcoming trial.

They say the individual jurors’ identities should only be known by the judge, the two sides and their attorneys due to the high-profile nature of the case.

Prosecutors said in a written response filed in court Friday that they don’t object to the request.

But lawyers for the government are also seeking to admit as evidence some of the lies Santos made during his campaign. Before he was elected in 2022 to represent parts of Queens and Long Island, he made false claims that he graduated from both New York University and Baruch College and that he’d worked at financial giants Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, prosecutors said.

They argue that the wholesale fabrications about his background are “inextricably intertwined ” with the criminal charges he faces.

Santos’ lawyers have declined to comment on the prosecution’s request.

Last month, federal Judge Joanna Seybert turned down Santos’ request to dismiss three of the 23 charges he faces.

He dropped a longshot bid to return to Congress as an independent in April.

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Follow Philip Marcelo at twitter.com/philmarcelo.