Two New Jersey veterans confirmed the story to CNN’s Don Lemon Thursday that, in 2016, a man by the name of Anthony Devolder, now known as Rep. George Santos, stole money meant for a dog’s lifesaving surgery.
Rich Osthoff told Lemon that his pit bull terrier Sapphire had been diagnosed with a fast-growing tumor in 2015. Osthoff, who was unhoused at the time, says he desperately needed help. As CNN reports, his mentor and friend, Michael Boll, founder of New Jersey Veterans Network, tried to get Osthoff the help he and his dog needed.
Boll says a friend helped to connect Osthoff with Santos, who then set up a GoFundMe for Sapphire. The fundraiser raised $3,000 in about two months, according to Boll, but the money never went to Osthoff for his dog. In fact, the veteran says Santos insisted he take the dog to his veterinary clinic. Santos even said he’d pay the vet back for gas and tolls to take the dog to the Long Island clinic. “I was even gullible enough to give him my banking routing number to him because he said he would put the money directly into my account. That never happened.”
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Osthoff then supplied CNN with receipts: text exchanges from 2016 that show Santos dodging his questions.
“Hey, Anthony, Rich here. I was hoping to hear from you. Just checking whether you made contact with the vet,” Osthoff wrote.
Santos writes back: “just called,” he said, then complained that he was “jumping through hoops” to organize. “They [the vet] are not as flexible as you said they were.”
Osthoff then tells Santos, “I’m starting to feel like [SIC] I was mined for my family and friends' donations.”
Santos responds that Osthoff’s dog isn’t a candidate for surgery and “the funds are moved to the next animal in need, and we will make sure we use of [SIC] resources to keep her comfortable!”
Osthoff says Santos then refused to answer any calls, and that’s when he asked Boll to try to step in.
Boll told Lemon he tried to help Osthoff but to no avail, saying Santos wouldn’t even talk to him.
In a statement to CNN, GoFundMe said it removed the fundraiser from its platform after receiving a report about it.
“When we received a report of an issue with this fundraiser in late 2016, our trust and safety team sought proof of the delivery of funds from the organizer. The organizer failed to respond, which led to the fundraiser being removed and the email associated with that account prohibited from further use on our platform. GoFundMe has a zero tolerance policy for misuse of our platform and cooperates with law enforcement investigations of those accused of wrongdoing.”
“I have no clue what he’s talking about, and the crazy part is that anyone that knows me, knows I’d go to hell and back for a dog and especially a veteran,” Santos told CNN Wednesday.
According to Law&Crime, District Attorney Melinda Katz is currently looking into Santos about the possible scam.
Katz’s spokesperson told Law&Crime, “While as a matter of course we don’t comment on open investigations, we are reviewing whether Queens County has jurisdiction over any potential criminal offenses.”
This month, a complaint was filed with the Federal Election Commission, accusing Santos of a plethora of campaign finance violations, The Washington Post reports. Filed by the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, the complaint could launch an investigation by the federal regulator.
CNBC reported that during the 2020 and 2022 election cycles, a member of Santos’ campaign team had a plan to dupe donors by impersonating Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s chief of staff, Dan Meyer.
The Santos staffer’s name was actually Sam Miele, according to CNBC.
Santos is also embroiled in an investigation by the Nassau County, New York, district attorney’s office and authorities in Brazil involving a fraud case dating back to 2008.
But as Daily Kos’ Kerry Eleveld succinctly wrote, the GOP does not want to lose another House seat.
“The reason Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his cronies would much rather chew glass followed by a saltwater gargle than aid the ouster of their own disgraced member is simple—they cannot afford to lose even one more seat,” Eleveld writes.
Payment from the GoFundMe for Osthoff’s dog’s care never came, and he says he was forced to “panhandle” for Saphire to be put to sleep and for his cremation.
She “was my little savior… She kept me on this planet,” Osthoff told Lemon.
The Republican Party seems locked in a death spiral of unpopular anti-American rights policies. They seem to believe that the most important things to America are taking away people’s rights to choose what they do with their bodies and Hunter Biden’s junk. Kerry and Markos were right in their hypothesis about the midterms and they have predictions for the upcoming year and 2024.
