It’s a shame I don’t have a dollar for every time I’ve said, “You can’t make this stuff up.” I would surely be able to roll with the likes of Musk, Bezos, those guys. Your favorite human, George Santos, he who stole his roommate’s scarf to go attend a Stop the Steal rally, also stole money from a GoFundMe set up to get an operation for a veteran’s dying dog — according to the vet whose dog it was. Patch, New York, Oyster Bay:
QUEENS, NY — In May 2016, Richard Osthoff was living in a tent in an abandoned chicken coop on the side of Route 9 in Howell, New Jersey, with his beloved service dog Sapphire. A veteran’s charity gave the pit mix to Osthoff, a disabled veteran who was honorably discharged from the U.S. Navy in 2002, he told Patch.
When Sapphire developed a life-threatening stomach tumor, Osthoff, now 47, learned the surgery would cost $3,000. A veterinary technician took Osthoff aside and told him, “‘I know a guy who runs a pet charity who can help you,'” Osthoff recounted.
His name was Anthony Devolder, and his pet charity was called Friends of Pets United, the vet tech told him. […]
Osthoff and another New Jersey veteran, retired police Sgt. Michael Boll, who tried to intervene to help Osthoff in 2016, told Patch that Santos closed the GoFundMe he set up for Sapphire after it raised $3,000 on social media and disappeared.
If you read the rest of the article your heart will break if you’re an animal lover. I can only imagine this man’s pain, if someone was doing this to me with the life of one of my pets.
In August, the vet tech drove Osthoff and Sapphire to that veterinary practice in Queens because Santos told him he had “credit” with the practice from regularly using it so often for his charity.
“It was a tiny little hole in the wall place, but looked legitimate. The vet there said they couldn’t operate on the tumor,” Osthoff said, adding that he was confused because the New Jersey vet didn’t express any similar concerns.
After that, Osthoff said Santos became elusive. In November, Osthoff texted him, “I’m starting to feel like I was mined for my family and friends donations.”
He had one final phone conversation with Santos, who said that because Osthoff “didn’t do things my way,” he put the GoFundMe money from Sapphire’s fundraiser into the charity to use “for other dogs.”
Maybe we should have a contest, the Worst George Santos Story. For right now, this one takes the cake. This is on a par with Trump’s children stealing from children’s cancer charities and you know that right now nobody in the Trump family can operate a charity in New York State.
They have some really sick people in the GOP and the House,