CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (AP) — George Santos ′ former campaign treasurer was sentenced Wednesday to three years' probation for her role in fabricating campaign finance reports for the disgraced ex-congressman from New York.
Nancy Marks, addressing a federal judge on Long Island, said she'd learned from her mistakes, walked away from politics and started her life all over again at the age of 59.
The veteran political operative, who pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges last year, said she has been working nights at a warehouse and started taking courses toward a college degree, hoping to move into a management position.
“I thought I had found a friend in George Santos,” Marks said Wednesday. “But everything about him was a lie. I thought it was a true friend and a true person. He was not.”
Marks’ lawyer, Raymond Perini, said Santos came into her life at a “vulnerable” time when her husband was dying of brain cancer. The then-candidate ingratiated himself by claiming his mother had also suffered from brain cancer and that he had the same condition.
“He saw someone he could manipulate,” Perini said. “He preyed on her weakness.”
Prosecutor Anthony Bagnuola, in arguing for 18 months in prison, said Marks was “no rube,” but a seasoned political operative who provided the local contacts and “veneer of legitimacy” Santos needed to pull off his scheme.
“There are real victims in this case, but Nancy Marks is not one of them,” he said.
U.S. District Court Judge Joanna Seybert said she considered Marks’ responsibilities to her elderly mother and the fact that she was a first-time offender in deciding not to impose prison time.
But she also gave Marks a stern warning as she handed down her sentence, which includes being ordered to pay more than $178,000 in restitution.
“You knew better and you did it anyway,” the judge said. “There will be no more leniency for Nancy Marks. That’s it.”
Marks admitted to helping Santos inflate his campaign donations during the 2022 election cycle in order to hit the fundraising thresholds needed to qualify for backing from the national Republican Party.
Prosecutors say Marks filed campaign finance reports that listed a number of false donors, including at least 10 members of her family and Santos’ family.
The reports to the Federal Election Commission and the GOP National Committee also falsely claimed Santos had loaned his campaign $500,000 when in reality he didn’t have the money to make that kind of loan.
Marks, who faced up to five years in prison, worked on more than 150 Republican campaigns on Long Island, including for the current head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, during his successful campaigns for Congress and a failed gubernatorial run.
Santos was sentenced last month to more than seven years in federal prison after pleading guilty to federal wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. He’s due to report to prison July 25.
Sam Miele, a former fundraiser for Santos, was sentenced in March to one year and one day in prison for his role in the campaign fraud, which included impersonating a high-ranking congressional aide.
Santos served less than a year in Congress before becoming just the sixth member of the House to be ousted by colleagues after it was revealed he’d fabricated much of his life story.
The political unknown had painted himself as a successful business owner who worked at prestigious Wall Street firms, when in reality he was struggling financially.
The revelations led to congressional and criminal inquiries into how he had funded his campaign.
Follow Philip Marcelo at twitter.com/philmarcelo.
George Santos' former campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks, leaves federal court in Central Islip, N.Y., on Wednesday, May 28, 2025, after being sentenced to three years' probation for her role in fabricating campaign finance reports for the disgraced ex-congressman. (AP Photo/Philip Marcelo)
George Santos' former campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks, leaves federal court in Central Islip, N.Y., on Wednesday, May 28, 2025, after being sentenced to three years' probation for her role in fabricating campaign finance reports for the disgraced ex-congressman. (AP Photo/Philip Marcelo)
FILE - Nancy Marks leaves federal court, Oct. 5, 2023, in Central Islip, N.Y. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, file)
JERUSALEM (AP) — Over two dozen families from one of the few remaining Palestinian Bedouin villages in the central West Bank have packed up and fled their homes in recent days, saying harassment by Jewish settlers living in unauthorized outposts nearby has grown unbearable.
The village, Ras Ein el-Auja, was originally home to some 700 people from more than 100 families that have lived there for decades.
Twenty-six families already left on Thursday, scattering across the territory in search of safer ground, say rights groups. Several other families were packing up and leaving on Sunday.
“We have been suffering greatly from the settlers. Every day, they come on foot, or on tractors, or on horseback with their sheep into our homes. They enter people’s homes daily,” said Nayef Zayed, a resident, as neighbors took down sheep pens and tin structures.
Israel's military and the local settler governing body in the area did not respond to requests for comment.
Other residents pledged to stay put for the time being. That makes them some of the last Palestinians left in the area, said Sarit Michaeli, international director at B’Tselem, an Israeli rights group helping the residents.
She said that mounting settler violence has already emptied neighboring Palestinian hamlets in the dusty corridor of land stretching from Ramallah in the West to Jericho, along the Jordanian border, in the east.
The area is part of the 60% of the West Bank that has remained under full Israeli control under interim peace accords signed in the 1990s. Since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted in October 2023, over 2,000 Palestinians — at least 44 entire communities — have been expelled by settler violence in the area, B'Tselem says.
The turning point for the village came in December, when settlers put up an outpost about 50 meters (yards) from Palestinian homes on the northwestern flank of the village, said Michaeli and Sam Stein, an activist who has been living in the village for a month.
Settlers strolled easily through the village at night. Sheep and laundry went missing. International activists had to begin escorting children to school to keep them safe.
“The settlers attack us day and night, they have displaced us, they harass us in every way” said Eyad Isaac, another resident. “They intimidate the children and women.”
Michaeli said she’s witnessed settlers walk around the village at night, going into homes to film women and children and tampering with the village’s electricity.
The residents said they call the police frequently to ask for help — but it seldom arrives. Settlement expansion has been promoted by successive Israeli governments over nearly six decades. But Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government, which has placed settler leaders in senior positions, has made it a top priority.
That growth has been accompanied by a spike in settler violence, much of it carried out by residents of unauthorized outposts. These outposts often begin with small farms or shepherding that are used to seize land, say Palestinians and anti-settlement activists. United Nations officials warn the trend is changing the map of the West Bank, entrenching Israeli presence in the area.
Some 500,000 Israelis have settled in the West Bank since Israel captured the territory, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war. Their presence is viewed by most of the international community as illegal and a major obstacle to peace. The Palestinians seek all three areas for a future state.
For now, displaced families of the village have dispersed between other villages near the city of Jericho and near Hebron further south, said residents. Some sold their sheep and are trying to move into the cities.
Others are just dismantling their structures without knowing where to go.
"Where will we go? There’s nowhere. We’re scattered,” said Zayed, the resident, “People’s situation is bad. Very bad.”
An Israeli settler herds his flock near his outpost beside the Palestinian village of Ras Ein al-Auja in the West Bank, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
A Palestinian resident of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank burns trash, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Palestinian children play in the West Bank village of Ras Ein al-Auja, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Palestinian residents of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank pack up their belongings and prepare to leave their homes after deciding to flee mounting settler violence, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Palestinian residents of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank pack up their belongings and prepare to leave their homes after deciding to flee mounting settler violence, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
