SANTOS II: THE SEQUEL
Voters of New York’s Third Congressional District have seen this script before: a candidate with a resume that doesn’t survive a Google search, “home”addresses that don’t survive a bed check, and shady business dealings that make constituents cringe with embarrassment.
In 2022 his name was George Santos; in 2026 his name is Michael LiPetri, 35, a perennial Congressional candidate and former Santos business partner who has now given three home addresses in his fourth run for political office since 2018, the campaign of NY-3 America First conservative Greg Hach today charged.
THE ‘NIGERIAN PRINCE’ SCHEME (Yes, actually.)
The New York Times documented Mr. LiPetri as a named partner in one of the strangest chapters of the entire Santos saga: a venture in which Mr. Santos, Mr. LiPetri, and associates allegedly pitched a wealthy investor on forming an LLC to unlock supposedly frozen cryptocurrency belonging to a mystery “Polish national.” (The “Polish national” has never been produced.) The investor reached the conclusion that any reasonable adult would: he was being scammed, in his words, with a “Nigerian Prince” scheme, one of the oldest cons on the Internet.
When the scheme unravelled and became public, Mr. LiPetri dubiously claimed that he wasn’t involved “in detail”, but Mr. Santos’s own lawyer emphatically contradicted Mr. LiPetri’s account, asserting that it was Mr. LiPetri who originated the connection. Mr. Santos even accused his nomadic former partner of misconduct toward staff.
Mr. LiPetri, who’s already under scrutiny forresume inflation – sound familiar? — has never fully explained his role in the LiPetri-Santos “Nigerian Prince” scandal, the Hach campaign noted. (Mr. LiPetri falsely claimed to have stunningly prosecuted cases when in fact he was a law school student intern in prosecutorial offices that actually did the work.)
Mr. LiPetri is also under fire for his third straight run for Congress with a residency controversy. What’s that definition of insanity again?
“The people of this district were humiliated once by a congressman whose entire life was a con,” said Hach spokesman, Bill O’Reilly. “Now failed Santos business partner Mike LiPetri, Heaven help us, is pursuing the exact same seat. On June 23, Republicans can put an end to this madness once and for all by electing a candidate with a life-long record of accomplishment and nothing to hide, Greg Hach.”
The Hach campaign posed the following questions which Mr. LiPetri refuses to answer:
What was your full business relationship with George Santos?
What was your role in the LiPetri-Santos frozen-cryptocurrency venture that an investor described as a “Nigerian Prince” scheme?
George Santos’s lawyer says you originated the connection in this scheme. You say you weren’t involved “in detail.” Which detail, specifically, were you not involved in?
Has the mystery Polish national been located? Does he actually exist and how do you know him?
Where do you actually live — and did you certify an address you knew as false on your government designating petitions?
Will you release documentation of every prosecution you “successfully” conducted before your January 2016 bar admission — or were those also frozen overseas?
