Money had come in from raffles and sales of gift baskets; a few pets had found new homes. All in all, the adoption charity event at a Pet Oasis store on Staten Island had been a success.
But then the charity’s leader made an odd request: He insisted that the store owner give him the proceeds in a check made out to his name, Anthony Devolder.
The owner refused and made the check payable to the charity, Friends of Pets United. Days later, when he looked at his bank records, he noticed that the check had been altered: The charity’s name had been blotted out. “When it cashed, it was crossed out, and it had Anthony Devolder written on it,” the owner, Daniel Avissato, said.
Anthony Devolder is now better known as Representative George Santos, a Republican from New York whose election to Congress in November was upended by revelations of falsehoods in his background and irregularities in his personal and campaign finances.
Federal and local prosecutors are investigating whether Mr. Santos’s lies on the campaign trail or his unusual campaign expenses and fund-raising practices merit criminal charges. And F.B.I. agents are now apparently looking into some of his work with Friends of Pets United, according to news accounts.
Mr. Santos has said that he “founded and ran” the charity from 2013 to 2018. In that time, Mr. Santos’s campaign biography once asserted, the organization rescued more than 2,500 animals. He recently characterized his involvement with the charity as a “labor of...
The Southeast National Vice Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Barr. Ray Nnaji said that widespread claims of a leadership crisis in the party stem from misinterpreting recent court r...