If you missed the previous installment in this ongoing story about George Santos sketchy animal charity you can find it here. The very short version is that Santos seems to have set up a whole series of GoFundMe fundraisers and it’s not clear he ever turned over the money to the people/animals it was raised for.

Today, Politico has another story which looks very bad for Santos, though he’s probably in the clear legally. Back in 2017 he was charged with theft for (allegedly) writing a series of bad checks to Amish dog breeders. Politico has copies of some of the checks in the story. In the memo line, someone has written “puppy” or “puppies.” The checks, which collectively totaled more than $15,000, have Santos name on them but no address. Just days later, Santos was hosting a puppy adoption event in Staten Island:

One of Santos’ bounced checks was written out to Jacob Stoltzfus, a dog breeder in Bird-in-Hand, Pa., in the amount of $775 for “puppy” and dated Nov. 22, 2017, according to a copy of the check obtained by POLITICO. Stoltzfus said that would have been a typical amount for one of his purebred dogs at the time.

The recipients attempted to cash the checks at Coatesville Savings Bank and Bank of Bird-in-Hand in Pennsylvania.

Just three days after the $775 check is dated — on Nov. 25, 2017 — Santos’ animal charity Friends of Pets United held a puppy adoption event at the Staten Island pet store Pet Oasis.

“Friends of Pets United has a puppy overload … We’ll be cuddling: Golden Retriever, Lab, Yorkie, Border collie, American Eskimo and Shepherds … #adoptdontshop,” an Instagram post from Pet Oasis read.

That “puppy overload” event is the same one the NY Times wrote about earlier this week. When the event was over, Santos asked the store owner to make a check for all the proceeds in his own name, rather than in the name of his charity. The owner refused and made the check out to Friends of Pets United. But he noticed that when the check was eventually cashed, Santos had changed it so it was made out in his name and the charity name was crossed out.

So here’s what happened here (allegedly). Santos wrote bad checks for puppies to Amish breeders then took the dogs to Staten Island and sold them through the adoption event. This would be a money losing proposition normally since adoptions only cost $300 to $400 dollars while the puppies themselves cost closer to $800 from the breeders. But of course the finances work out fine if you paid for the puppies with bad checks. Remember all of these puppies were supposed to be rescue animals “#adoptdontshop” but it sure sounds like Santos was just reselling stolen breeder dogs. Obviously that’s no hurdle if you’re willing to lie.

How Santos (allegedly) got away with this is almost as interesting as the scam itself. In late 2019 the NYPD served him an extradition warrant on the 2017 theft charge. Santos asked Tiffany Bogosian, a former middle school friend who was now an attorney, for legal help. Naturally, he had a whole story about how someone had stolen his checks.

In the email, Bogosian argued Santos’ case, as he’d relayed it to her.

“In 2017 he received four check books for the account at his request from the TD BANK branch he banked with in Queens, NY, and of the four one went missing,” Bogosian wrote to the Pennsylvania trooper.

“He immediately called his bank upon learning 1/4 check books was missing and all checks were canceled at that time, with a stop pay on all checks.”

In short, Bogosian made the case that Santos was a victim of fraud not a perpetrator. He eventually went to Pennsylvania and convinced prosecutors their to drop the charges. In retrospect, Bogosian says she thought it was odd at the time that Santos had checks with no address on them but she ultimately went along with his story.

Santos is a liar and in this case he’s (allegedly) also a thief. Is it too late to bring charges against him again for the bad checks? Maybe Pennsylvania prosecutors can do us all a favor and give the GOP an excuse to boot him.