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(Trends Wide) — Prosecutors in Brazil have reached an agreement with Rep. George Santos in a case in which he is accused of defrauding a Rio de Janeiro-area employee out of $1,300 worth of clothing and shoes in 2008, documents obtained by Trends Wide show. .
A petition from Santos’ lawyer seeking a settlement says Santos would agree to formally confess to the crime and pay damages to the victim, an employee from the Rio de Janeiro area, as required by Brazilian law.
A memo from the prosecutors who agreed to the agreement last week asked the defense for guarantees that they have the ability to contact the victim to pay him before the agreement is finalized.
Santos’ lawyer’s petition, filed in January, requests a non-procedural agreement in lieu of trial for his client, arguing that Santos now has gainful employment and is “resocialized.” The petition also requested permission for the court to communicate with Santos by email or phone, and to participate in the proceedings by video conference.
Settlements can be made in non-violent cases where the minimum sentence is less than four years.
Santos did not comment when asked about this report on Capitol Hill by Trends Wide’s Manu Raju. Trends Wide has reached out to Santos’ lawyers in Brazil and the United States.
In 2010, Santos told police that he wrote bad checks from a stolen checkbook belonging to an elderly man his mother cared for to buy the items.
Santos told the New York Post in December that he had not been charged with any crime in Brazil. “I am not a criminal here, neither here nor in Brazil nor in any jurisdiction in the world. Absolutely not. That didn’t happen,” he said at the time.
After Santos left for the United States, Brazilian authorities could not find an address to deliver the documents that required him to appear in court, ultimately leading to the filing of the case, until it was reopened in January.
Prosecutors were unable to comment further as the case is under a restraining order.
