George Santos' Former NY Coworkers Fill In Murky Biography

LONG ISLAND, NY —As allegations of a fabricated background swirl around Long Island Congressman-elect George Santos, several people have detailed how they worked alongside him in a Queens customer service center.

The 34-year-old Republican, set to take his seat representing parts of Long Island and Queens in January, campaigned as a "seasoned Wall Street financier and investor," a Baruch College graduate who worked his way up through the banking giants.

But a New York Times bombshell report this week called into question many of his claims, and a clamor followed to find out who Santos really is.

Patch spoke with multiple people who said they worked alongside Santos at Dish Network in College Point in 2011 and 2012. They offered details of his background not portrayed in his official biography.

According to his former coworkers, Santos was a bilingual customer service representative at Dish Network, offering support in Portuguese. A Dish Network representative confirmed to Patch that Santos worked there between October 2011 and July 2012.

Efforts to contact Santos and his lawyer for this story were not successful.

Barbara Hurdas said she started training at Dish the same day as Santos in October 2011. She was hired as a Greek language representative, and the two worked together at the now-closed Queens office until Santos left the company, she said.

"He used to tell us he was born in Brazil," she recalled to Patch, "and that he would travel back and forth and that he came from money."

At the time, Hurdas remembered Santos going by the names Anthony Devolder and George Devolder, but also sometimes George Anthony Devolder Santos.

She remained friends with him on Facebook for years after he left Dish, and remembered him sharing fundraisers for an animal rescue group he said he created, sometimes asking for donations via PayPal.

The legitimacy of the charity, Friends of Pets United (FOPU), has since faced scrutiny after news outlets failed to find evidence it was a registered nonprofit in New York or Florida. Hurdas told Patch she never thought the charity "made sense."

“It started out of nowhere and he was posting constantly trying to get donations on his personal Facebook account and in a private group,” she remembered.

Santos has maintained he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and finance from Baruch in 2010. But The New York Times reported that Baruch had no record of him ever being there. Hurdas said she remembered him saying he was in college or graduate school in 2011 and 2012 while working at Dish, but she didn't know where.

She also recalled him dressing in expensive clothing and taking frequent trips to Brazil. On one trip, Hurdas recalled, he posted photos of a woman who came back to New York with him, and whom he identified on social media as his wife – a relationship Santos didn’t mention during his campaign.

New York City marriage records show an August 2012 marriage license issued to George Anthony Devolder Santos and a woman whose name later appeared connected to addresses in Queens that were also linked to Santos and his mother. The Daily Beast reported Thursday that Santos divorced the woman in 2019.

Where Santos worked after leaving Dish Network in 2012 is unclear, but his official biography states that while working at Citigroup, "he was offered a position at growing Turkish-based tech hospitality firm Metglobal where he led business development efforts growing the US presence of the firm."

"George Anthony was then offered an exciting opportunity with Goldman Sachs, but what he thought would be the pinnacle of his career was not as fulfilling as he had anticipated."

The dates that he took these positions were not listed in Santos' official biography.

Santos' story beyond his time at Dish is also under scrutiny, including details about a firm he claims to have founded, the Devolder Organization, a fraud charge in Brazil, a claim that four of his employees died in a mass shooting, and the origin of his assets – all of which were questioned in the New York Times report.

And on Wednesday, The Forward, a national Jewish media outlet, and CNN called into question Santos' claims of having grandparents who "fled Jewish persecution in Ukraine, settled in Belgium, and again fled persecution during WWII."

Santos has said his maternal grandfather was from Ukraine and left for Brazil to escape Nazis.

The Forward reported, citing myheritage.com, that his maternal grandparents were both born in Brazil. Genealogist Megan Smolenyak helped CNN research Santos’ family tree and told the outlet in an email: “There’s no sign of Jewish and/or Ukrainian heritage and no indication of name changes along the way.”

On Thursday afternoon, Santos shared a statement on Twitter, addressing the questions raised since the Times piece was published:

"To the people of #NY03 I have my story to tell and it will be told next week. I want to assure everyone that I will address your questions and that I remain committed to deliver the results I campaigned on; Public safety, Inflation, Education & more."

Hurdas told Patch she's not surprised about the recent allegations.

"Even back then it seemed that his life was fabricated, almost like he was playing a character," she said.