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New York federal prosecutors have charged the organiser of SantaCon, a Christmas charity bar crawl, with wire fraud, saying he spent proceeds on luxury holidays and a home renovation rather than donating them.
Stefan Pildes, 50, was arrested in Manhattan on Wednesday, prosecutors in the Southern District of New York said. The charge of wire fraud carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Pildes allegedly “promoted SantaCon as an event grounded in charitable giving, but instead of donating the millions of dollars he raised, he ran his own con game”, said Jay Clayton, who leads the SDNY. “No matter how you dress it up, fraud is fraud.”
A seven-page indictment against Pildes said SantaCon raised about $2.7mn in proceeds starting around November 2019, and “siphoned off” approximately half to a “slush fund to finance various personal ventures”.
The indictment claimed he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of SantaCon proceeds on concerts, a $3,000 birthday dinner, luxury holidays in Hawaii and Las Vegas and a New Jersey home renovation. It also alleged he made a $100,000 investment in a Costa Rica resort founded by a friend. Only a “small fraction” was donated.
Pildes’ lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, which is bringing the case, has for decades built a reputation as a fierce prosecutor of high-profile and complex white-collar crimes. It was behind the prosecutions of financiers Michael Milken and Bernard Madoff as well as FTX crypto exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
SantaCon is a December ritual in which about 25,000 revellers dress as Santa Claus and other festive characters and visit Manhattan bars and restaurants that sign up to take part in the event.
Partygoers buy tickets to take part, and the event website says proceeds go “directly to Santa’s charity drive”. Bars and restaurants agree to donate a percentage of sales to the non-profit that organises the event.
Pildes allegedly “stole Christmas from tens of thousands of victims and deprived local charities of more than one million dollars”, said James Barnacle, FBI assistant director in charge of the agency’s New York field office.
Separate SantaCon events take place in several locations but the federal case relates to the one in New York. Pildes is the only defendant.
The New York SantaCon website describes the event as a “nonsensical Santa Claus convention” to “spread absurdist joy” and urges participants not to vomit, litter, fight, urinate on the street, climb on cars or deface property.
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