WASHINGTON — Long Island Rep.-elect George Santos’ fondness for fibbing began long before his successful House campaign, according to his former live-in boyfriend.
As local and federal prosecutors investigate whether the 34-year-old Republican broke any laws with his deception, his former lover Pedro Vilarva claimed to the New York Times that Santos’ propensity for dishonesty stretches back nearly a decade.
Vilarva was just 18 when he began dating the then-26-year-old Santos in 2014. At the time, the newspaper reported, Vilarva was “young and gullible,” wanting to believe the stories the future congressman told.
A few months into their relationship, Santos reportedly proposed the two move in together — while leaving his teenage boyfriend to handle most of the bills.
“He never actually went to work,” Vilarva told the newspaper. “He used to say he would get money from Citigroup, he was an investor. One day it’s one thing, one day it’s another thing.”
Still, the young man found Santos “charming and sweet,” and felt “on top of the world” with the new relationship, according to the report. That would change in early 2015 when the future congressman surprised Vilarva with tickets to Hawaii “that turned out not to exist.”
Around the same time, Vilarva said, his cellphone disappeared, leading him to suspect Santos of pawning it off. Gutted by the betrayal, Vilarva told the paper that he typed Santos’ name into a search engine, which revealed he was wanted by Brazilian police for allegedly writing bad checks.
“I woke up in the morning, and I packed my stuff all in trash bags, and I called my father and I left,” Vilarva told the newspaper.
Santos last week admitted to The Post he lied about multiple claims he made on the campaign trail, including that he had worked for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup and graduated from Baruch College. In reality, he never graduated from high school, let alone college — though he said he obtained a GED.
Santos continues to deny any legal wrongdoing, telling The Post last week that he is “not a criminal here — not here or in Brazil or any jurisdiction in the world.”
Vilarva told the New York Times that he “would be scared to have someone like that in charge — having so much power in his hands.”
If Vilarva’s account is true, the relationship raises further questions about Santos’ personal history after the first openly gay non-incumbent Republican elected to the House claimed that he was married to a woman from 2012 until his divorce in 2017.
Santos is expected to take the oath of office when Congress convenes on Tuesday. He has announced plans to use his swearing-in ceremony as a questionable fundraising effort that asks supporters to chip in a minimum of $100 to attend.
