• Rep. George Santos has requested a choose to preserve the names of the people today who guaranteed his 50 %-million-greenback bond a key.
• The embattled congressman said outing them would make them targets for work reduction, violence, and dying threats
• Santos reported he’d relatively forfeit his bond and go to jail than reveal his suretors’ identities.

Rep. George Santos has begged a decide not to reveal the names of the anonymous men and women who agreed to pony up a $500,000 bond to maintain him out of jail as he fights legal fraud prices. 

And if the decide mandates that his guarantors be discovered, Santos explained he’d forfeit his bond and remain jailed until finally his demo, in accordance to court paperwork received by Insider.  

In a letter to US Choose Anne Shields late Monday, Santos, by his attorney Joseph Murray, argued that divulging their names would subject them to a media frenzy, public ridicule, harassment, job loss, and prospective violence. 

“Listed here in the prompt situation, the suretors are probably to put up with wonderful distress, may possibly eliminate their positions, and God forbid, may possibly undergo actual physical harm,” Murray wrote in a letter to the choose, which was received by Insider.  

“My client would alternatively surrender to pretrial detainment than subject these suretors to what will inevitably arrive,” Murray extra.

The attorney stated both he and Santos have been victims of harassment and dying threats because his shopper was indicted past month and is sure that the very same would take place to the suretors. 

“There is very little doubt that the suretors will endure some unneeded type of retaliation if their identities and work are revealed,” Murray wrote, incorporating that an unidentified human being termed him as soon as he filed files to the courtroom past 7 days. 

“The simple fact that a person emailed me my personal letter again to me soon right after I submitted it with the Court docket, tells us that they are just all set and waiting around to pounce,” the lawyer wrote. “A couple of hrs afterwards on Friday, June 2, 2023, I acquired a simply call wherein a male voice just shouted what sounded like, ‘Who paid out Santo’s bond?’ Yet again, they are just waiting to pounce on the suretors.”  

Choose Shields requested Santos to reply to motions from a media consortium — including Insider — to divulge the names of the individuals who secured his bond. The media stores lobbied for the release of the names, arguing that it was in the general public interest.

Past thirty day period, Choose Shields held a clandestine listening to with the bond guarantors, court docket filings clearly show, and their names have not been revealed to the public.

“There is a persuasive public interest in maintaining the best transparency feasible in these proceedings, which include prison costs brought in opposition to a sitting down member of the United States Residence of Reps for fraud and theft of community revenue, among the other alleged prison carry out,” the letter from the news corporations to the judge states. 

A grand jury indicted Santos previous month on 13 prison rates, together with fraud. Prosecutors allege Santos solicited donations that had been purported to be for his campaign, but he in its place put in on personalized fees. Prosecutors also allege he improperly gathered unemployment added benefits though he was collecting a six-figure income and submitted false money disclosure stories to Congress for his two election campaigns. 

Santos pleaded not guilty at his arraignment on May possibly 10, has denied any wrongdoing, and pledged to vigorously protect himself from the prices. 

The judge has not however dominated on regardless of whether or not to make the suretors’ names public. 

Santos is thanks back in court docket later on this month. His lawyer did not quickly react to a request for comment.