The Blubber

A federal judge in New York sentenced former Rep. George Santos to more than seven years in prison on Friday.

"Where is the remorse?" U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert asked Santos before sentencing him to 87 months behind bars and ordering him to pay nearly $374,000 in restitution.

He was ordered to surrender by July 25.

Judge Seybert delivered the sentence after Santos made a tearful plea for leniency, acknowledging he had "betrayed the confidence" of his constituents.

The judge, however, did not appear swayed by Santos’ sobs. She said she doesn't like sending people to prison, but that Santos was “fully deserving” of the lengthy sentence.

John J. Durham, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, called the punishment "justice" after the hearing, saying Santos was "finally held accountable for the mountain of lies, theft, and fraud he perpetrated."

Santos, 36, had pleaded guilty last August to charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

Prosecutors had urged Seybert to impose the full 87-month sentence, arguing it was necessary "to reflect the seriousness of Santos’s unparalleled crimes."

"From his creation of a wholly fictitious biography to his callous theft of money from elderly and impaired donors, Santos’s unrestrained greed and voracious appetite for fame enabled him to exploit the very system by which we select our representatives," prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.

Despite his guilty plea and a tearful apology to reporters afterward, prosecutors described Santos as "a pathological liar" who showed no true remorse.

They pointed to his recently launched weekly podcast, "Pants on Fire with George Santos," calling it “a perfect crystallization of his lack of genuine contrition and his tone-deaf efforts to continue turning lies into dollars."