George Santos, openly gay Republican congressman-elect, was married to a woman until 2019

The openly gay congressman-elect who is already accused of lying about his professional career in finance and his college education now appears to have made up details about his family escaping The Holocaust and maybe even about his own sexual orientation.

During the 2022 election cycle, Republican George Santos of New York described himself as being gay and married to his pharmacist husband. Now, a bombshell report from the Daily Beast alleges that there is no record of that marriage.

There is, however, a record showing that Santos was married to a woman named Uadla Vieira, a native of Brazil, until 2019. The couple was married in 2012. 

DailyMail.com has now obtained an exclusive photo of Vieira, showing in a car with a  young girl. It is unclear whether the child is hers.

Santos was on the ballot against Democratic businessman Robert Zimmerman, who is also gay, and beat him by eight points in November in New York’s 3rd congressional district, which covers part of northern Long Island and northeast Queens.

In addition, The Forward earlier reported that Santos, who has previously described himself as a non-observant Jew and Catholic, fabricated his family history. He earlier alleged that his maternal grandparents escaped The Holocaust.  

George Santos (right) poses with his then fiancé at Mar-a-Lago on New Year’s Eve. Santos was the first out gay Republican elected to the U.S. Congress 

Public records, however, show that he was previously married to a woman named Uadla Vieira, a native of Brazil, until 2019

This month, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that there was ‘little to suggest truth beyond his own past comments’ about his family fleeing the horror of World War II. 

According to a CNN report, genealogical records show that Santos’ family has lived in Brazil for a least four generations and there is no evidence that they are Jewish or descended from Eastern Europe. 

Santos was born in the Jackson Heights section of Queens to Fatima Devolder and Gercino Santos, Brazilian immigrants. The Forward’s report says that Fatima Devolder’s parents were born in Brazil and neither was Jewish.  

In October, Santos told USA Today in an interview: ‘I am openly gay, have never had an issue with my sexual identity in the past decade, and I can tell you and assure you, I will always be an advocate for LGBTQ folks.’ He also said that he never experienced discrimination within the GOP. 

The Daily Beast’s report says that Santos was granted an uncontested divorce in Queens County in September 2019.  

Republican Rep.-elect George Santos comes to Congress in January with a degree from Baruch College and stints at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, according to his campaign biography, but a New York Times investigation suggests those could be false claims 

On Monday night, Santos’ lawyer Joseph Murray put out a statement attacking The New York Times for ‘launch[ing] this shotgun blast of attacks’ 

Earlier this week, journalists went to where Santos is registered to vote and the address associated with a campaign donation he made in October, but the woman living at that address said Sunday she was not familiar with Santos. 

He had run originally for New York’s 3rd congressional seat in 2020, but was defeated by incumbent Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi.

This time, Suozzi decided against running for reelection, vying for governor instead – failing to defeat Kathy Hochul in the state’s Democratic primary.

On his campaign website, Santos boasts about being the son of Brazilian immigrants, having to drop out of preparatory school, but getting his GED and going on to get an economics and finance degree from Baruch College.

‘After graduating, George Anthony began working at Citigroup as an associate and quickly advanced to become an associate asset manager in the real asset division of the firm,’ the campaign website says.

A Citigroup spokeswoman, Danielle Romero-Apsilos, said the company could not confirm Santos’ employment.

She was also unfamiliar with Santos’ supposed job title, pointing out that Citi had sold off its asset management operations in 2005, five years before Santos said he graduated from college.

See also  Kanye shares fresh hint he'll run for president AGAIN with 2024 baseball cap after blasting BLM 

George Santos (left) shakes the hand of Rudy Giuliani (right). The New York Times found out Santos may have lied about where he went to school and working for big financial institutions like Citigroup and Goldman Sachs

Santos also said he worked at MetGlobal and ‘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 Times was unable to reach anyone at MetGlobal for comment, while Goldman Sachs spokeswoman Abbey Collins told The Times she could not find any record of Santos working for the company.

The next company Santos says he worked for, called LinkBridge Investors, did have a paper trail for him.

A company document listed Santos as a vice president and his May 2020 campaign disclosure form said he was bringing in $55,000 in salary, commission, and bonuses.

While running for Congress Santos took a job at Harbor City Capital, a Florida-based investment firm sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly running a $17 million Ponzi scheme.

Santos was not named in the lawsuit.

Harbor City’s executives also created a company called Red Strategies USA that did political work for one client, Tina Forte, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Republican challenger.

Santos then went to work for his family’s firm, Devolder Organization, and put on his financial disclosure forms that he makes a salary of $750,000 – that’s nearly 14 times what he was making in 2020 at LinkBridge.

Santos (left) poses with Repubilcan Rep. Lee Zeldin (right), who lost to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul for the governor’s mansion in 2022 

The Times found that Devolder Organization had been dissolved over failure to file an annual report.

Santos also claimed that his family owned 13 properties – but there are no records of those either.

‘We worked hard to acquire these assets,’ he said in a February 2021 post, complaining about how tenants couldn’t be evicted during the pandemic.

But The Times found evidence that Santos had been sued for eviction from properties he rented – once in November 2015 and again in May 2017.

The first landlord, Maria Tulumba, told The Times Santos was a ‘nice guy’ and a ‘respectful’ tenant, but had financial problems that led to the eviction case.

Santos is pictured voting in the November election. He first ran for Congress in 2020 and lost to incumbent Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi

As a teenager in Brazil, Santos got in legal trouble for stealing the checkbook of the man his mother was working for and writing checks for purchases, including a pair of shoes, The Times also reported.

On his campaign website, Santos said he founded a non-profit called Friends of Pets United, however the Internal Revenue Service had no record of its existence.

The group held at least one fundraiser with a New Jersey animal rescue group in 2017, in which tickets cost $50.

The event’s beneficiary anonymously told The Times she never received any of the money – repeatedly receiving excuses from Santos.

The Times’ story was met with attacks from Santos’ lawyer Joseph Murray Monday evening.

‘George Santos represents the kind of progress that the Left is so threatened by – a gay, Latino, first-generation American and Republican who won a Biden district in overwhelming fashion by showing everyday voters that there is a better option than the broken promises and failed policies of the Democratic Party,’ Murray said in a statement tweeted out by Santos.

‘After four years in the public eye, and on the verge of being sworn in as a member of the Republican-led 118th Congress, The New York Times launches this shotgun blast of attacks,’ it continued.

‘It is no surprise that congressman-elect Santos has enemies at The New York Times who are attempting to smear his good name with these defamatory allegations,’ Murray said.

Murray went on to misattribute a Victor Hugo quote to Winston Churchill.

A request for comment from DailyMail.com went unreturned.