NEW YORK — George Santos is defending his recent social media tirade to a federal judge who will be sentencing the disgraced former New York congressman later this week on fraud charges.

In a lengthy letter ahead of the Friday court date, Santos, 36, said he remains “profoundly sorry” for his crimes but protests that the seven-year prison sentence sought by prosecutors as “ridiculous” and overly harsh.

“Every sunrise since that plea has carried the same realization: I did this, me. I am responsible,” wrote the former Republican lawmaker, who pleaded guilty last summer. “But saying I’m sorry doesn’t require me to sit quietly while these prosecutors try to drop an anvil on my head.”

Prosecutors, in a filing last week, argued Santos “remains unrepentant” and has not shown genuine remorse, as his lawyers have claimed in their own filing seeking a lighter, two-year prison stint.

They cited a series of posts on X, formerly Twitter, in which he disparaged the U.S. Department of Justice as a “cabal of pedophiles” and cast himself as a victim of prosecutorial overreach.

Santos, who admitted he deceived donors and stole the identities of nearly a dozen people to fund his congressional campaign, countered that his “colorful” posts are being wrongly “repurposed as a sword against me” by prosecutors.

“Contesting the severity of a proposed sentence is not the same as contesting guilt, and punishing protected speech because it questions punishment should trouble anyone who values fair prosecution over personal vindication,” he wrote.

Santos said calling himself the “scapegoat” in social media posts was in reference to prosecutors claiming he was the “organizer/leader” of his campaign’s financial fraud and warranted a stiffer sentence. He argued his former campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks, who has also pleaded guilty and faces sentencing next month, shares equal part in the blame.

“If I were the criminal mastermind they portray, I would be the clumsiest in modern memory: leaving a trail of screenshots pointing directly back to myself,” he wrote in the Saturday letter.

Santos also pushed back at prosecutors’ claims that he has not made efforts to pay the roughly $580,000 owed as part of his plea deal, saying he’s “liquidated personal assets, reduced my living expenses, and tried as hard as I could to raise some money for restitution.”

He added that he has not asked any of his friends or family to write letters to the court on his behalf, nor did he expect any supporters to attend Friday’s sentencing in Long Island federal court out of embarrassment and shame.

“I don’t want to bring anyone else in my life into this mess,” Santos wrote. “This is mine to deal with and mine alone.”

The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York’s office, which is prosecuting the case, declined to comment.

Santos was elected in 2022 to represent parts of Queens and Long Island but served barely a year before being ousted by his House colleagues.

Santos fabricated much of his life story, leading to questions about how the political unknown had funded his winning campaign.

___

Follow Philip Marcelo at twitter.com/philmarcelo.

NEW YORK — Harvey Weinstein has been moved to a New York City hospital after a judge approved the ailing ex-studio boss’s request to stay there rather than in jail when he’s not in court for his #MeToo retrial.

Judge Paul Goetz late Thursday ordered that Weinstein be immediately relocated from the city’s notorious Rikers Island jail complex to the prison ward at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan so he can receive necessary medical treatment.

Weinstein’s lawyers lobbied for the move as jury selection got underway this week.

They argued in court papers that being locked up in a sometimes freezing jail cell was exacerbating the Oscar-winning producer’s health issues, which include chronic myeloid leukemia, diabetes and walking difficulties that require a wheelchair to get in and out of court.

Goetz’s order will remain in effect at least until next Thursday, when he is set to hold a hearing to discuss the matter further.

A different judge, Curtis Farber, is presiding over Weinstein’s retrial. The case will resume Monday with more jury selection after nine jurors were picked this week. In all, 12 jurors and six alternates need to be seated.

Weinstein is being tried again on rape and sexual assault charges after New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, last year overturned his 2020 conviction and 23-year prison sentence and ordered a new trial, finding that improper rulings and prejudicial testimony tainted the original one.

Weinstein has pleaded not guilty and denies raping or sexually assaulting anyone.

Weinstein has been back and forth numerous times to Bellevue in recent months for treatment of various maladies. At a pretrial hearing in January, he railed against his treatment at Rikers, telling Farber he wanted to “get out of this hellhole as quickly as possible.”

Weinstein’s lawyers filed a legal claim against New York City last November, alleging he was receiving substandard medical treatment in unhygienic conditions at Rikers. The claim, which seeks $5 million in damages, argues that Weinstein has been returned to Rikers each time before fully recovering at the hospital.

The troubled jail complex has faced growing scrutiny for its mistreatment of detainees and dangerous conditions. Last year, a federal judge cleared the way for a possible federal takeover, finding the city had placed inmates in “unconstitutional danger.”

SAVANNAH, Ga. — Court records say a passenger on a small regional flight to Miami attacked a flight attendant, kicked and punched the seat of the person in front of him and swallowed rosary beads as pilots returned to the airport in Savannah, Georgia.

The passenger was traveling with his sister, who said her brother told her before the violent outburst to “close her eyes and pray because Satan’s disciple(s) had followed them onto the plane,” according to an FBI agent’s affidavit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court.

No one was seriously hurt on the Monday night flight operated by Envoy Air, a regional carrier for American Airlines. The 31-year-old passenger was jailed on charges including misdemeanor battery, misdemeanor obstruction of police and a felony count of criminal property damage.

FBI Agent Savannah Solomon described the violent episode in her affidavit, saying there was probable cause to charge the man with a federal crime of interfering with a flight crew.

Solomon wrote that eight passengers were on the plane and flight attendants became concerned immediately after takeoff when they noticed one of them appearing to have a “fit of epilepsy” that included “stomping, incoherent yelling, and shaking.”

When a flight attendant approached the man, he turned in his seat and kicked the attendant in the chest, sending the worker flying into a window across the aisle, the agent wrote. The passenger then started kicking and punching the seat of the person in front of him, who moved before the back of the seat collapsed.

The pilots returned to the Savannah airport. After the plane landed, the man who had kicked the flight attendant charged toward the exit and threw punches at another flight attendant before being subdued by other passengers, the affidavit says.

He was apprehended by airport police and taken to a local hospital for “ingestion of rosary beads,” the affidavit says. Then the passenger was booked into the Chatham County jail.

Federal court records and online jail records did not list an attorney for the arrested passenger.

His sister told the FBI agent that they were traveling to Haiti “to flee religious attacks of a spiritual nature.” According to the affidavit, the woman said her brother had “swallowed the rosary beads because they are a weapon of strength in the spiritual warfare.”

The woman told the agent her brother was not suffering from mental health problems or medical issues.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A man convicted of kidnapping a woman in Miami and later strangling her to death is set to be executed next month under a death warrant Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Monday.

Michael Tanzi, 48, is scheduled to be executed April 8 at Florida State Prison.

Janet Acosta was seated inside her parked van in April 2000 when Tanzi attacked her and threatened her with a razor blade, according to court documents. Tanzi bound and gagged the woman and began heading toward the Florida Keys in her van. Tanzi sexually assaulted Acosta at one point and used her bank card to take money from ATMs.

Tanzi eventually drove to an isolated area of Cudjoe Key, where he strangled Acosta and left her body, officials said. He then drove to Key West to visit friends. As Tanzi was making his way through the Keys, Acosta’s friends reported her missing. Police recognized the woman’s van and arrested Tanzi.

Tanzi’s execution would be the state’s third so far this year. James Dennis Ford was put to death in February for murdering a couple in 1997 in Charlotte County. Edward James is scheduled to be executed March 20 for murdering a woman and raping and killing her 8-year-old-granddaughter in Seminole County in 1993.

NEW YORK — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced an agreement late Thursday to end a wildcat strike that has roiled the state’s prison system for more than a week.

Hochul said the state and the union for striking correctional workers agreed to binding terms after four days of mediation talks.

The workers must return to work by Saturday to avoid being disciplined for striking, mediator Martin Scheinman in a seven-page memo detailing the agreement, known as a binding consent award.

The deal includes changes to address staffing shortages and provisions to minimize mandatory 24-hour overtime shifts.

Hochul said the mediated settlement addresses many of the workers’ concerns, puts the state prison system on the path to safe operations and prevents future unsanctioned work stoppages.

“My top priority is the safety of all New Yorkers, and for the past 11 days, I have deployed every possible State resource to protect the well-being of correction officers, the incarcerated population and local communities across New York,” Hochul said in a statement.

The union, the New York State Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association, Inc., did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Strikers won several key concessions, including a temporary bump in overtime pay, a potential change in pay scale and the suspension of a prison reform law they blamed for making prisons less safe.

For the next month, under the agreement, overtime will be paid at a rate of 2½ times instead of the usual 1½ times regular pay. The state also agreed that within the next four months it will finish its analysis of a union request to bump the salary grade for officers and sergeants.

The reform law, which limits the use of solitary confinement, will remain suspended for 90 days while the state evaluates if reinstating it will “create an unreasonable risk” to staff and inmate safety.

The state and union also agreed to form a committee to study staffing and operational inefficiencies at each facility in an effort to relieve strain on existing staff.

Corrections officers began walking out Feb. 17 to protest working conditions. Hochul deployed the National Guard to some prisons to take the place of striking workers. The job action violated a state law barring strikes by most public employees. Several inmates have died during the strike.

Scheinman, a seasoned mediator who serves as the permanent arbitrator for Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League and their unions, said the sides demonstrated “good faith and enormous commitment to finding workable solutions for the workforce.”

“What has become clear during the mediation is the relationship between the parties and the workforce is strained,” Scheinman wrote in a memo explaining the agreement. “No single issue, law, or policy entirely explains the current situation. It is obvious this erosion did not happen all at once.”

The National Guard will draw down from state prisons as correctional officers return to work. In the agreement, National Guard members who remain in place will be used to prevent prison workers from being mandated to work a 24-hour overtime shift.

PHOENIX — Lawyers for 25,000 people incarcerated in Arizona have asked a judge to take over health care operations in state-run prisons and appoint an official to run them, saying the state is not capable of fixing deep failures in care even though it has been required to do so over the last decade.

In a filing Tuesday, the attorneys said a takeover is urgently needed because the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry lacks the leadership to comply with changes ordered by a judge in a 2012 lawsuit over the quality of medical and mental health care for prisoners.

The first constitutional violation in the case was found in 2015, they said, and “A decade later, defendants still have not demonstrated the will, knowledge, or capacity to reform their prison healthcare system.”

Arizona settled the case in 2014 but for years was dogged by complaints that it failed to follow through on its promises. The court slapped the state with contempt fines of $1.4 million in 2018 and $1.1 million in 2021. The settlement was eventually thrown out due to Arizona’s noncompliance, and a trial was ordered.

In a blistering 2022 verdict, U.S. District Court Judge Roslyn Silver ruled that the state was violating prisoners’ constitutional rights by providing them with inadequate care, knew about the problem for years and refused to correct it.

She also said prison health care deficiencies resulted in preventable deaths and issued an injunction requiring corrections authorities to fix the constitutional violations.

In September 2019 lawyers representing the prisoners made a similar request for a takeover, also known as a receivership. Though Silver has previously shied away from granting that, she later said she would revive that possibility if the state acts in bad faith or fails to comply with the court-ordered changes.

Lawyers for prisoners pointed to a recent report from a court-appointed expert who said health care for prisoners “remains poor, has shown little improvement since the start of the Injunction, and continues to place the residents at significant risk of serious harm, including death.”

The corrections department and Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’ office did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment on the request.

Past receiverships have been ordered for prisons in other states. In California in 2005, a federal judge seized control of the prison medical system after finding that an average of one inmate a week was dying of medical neglect or malpractice.

The Arizona lawsuit does not cover the nearly 10,000 people incarcerated in private prisons for state convictions.

MARK SCHIEFELBEIN via Getty Images

CONCORD, N.H. — The first of multiple sexual assault trials starts Wednesday for a man whose arrest more than five years ago thrust allegations of widespread abuse at New Hampshire’s state-run youth detention center into the public eye.

Former youth counselor Stephen Murphy, 55, of Danvers, Massachusetts, faces 16 charges involving four boys held at the Youth Development Center in Manchester in the late 1990s. In the current case, he faces one charge of aggravated felonious sexual assault alleging that he raped a boy in a stairwell while several coworkers restrained the teen.

Murphy’s accuser, Michael Gilpatrick, already has testified twice about the allegations — first at a civil trial involving another former youth center resident and again at a criminal trial for Brad Asbury, the man he said held him down. He described Murphy, Asbury and the others as a “hit squad” who regularly terrorized children.

“The four of them used to roll together,” he had testified. “They would literally come over and just go door to door and beat every single one of us, down the line.”

Asbury, 70, was convicted in November of two counts of being an accomplice to aggravated sexual assault, and prosecutors listed him as a potential witness against Murphy, who has pleaded not guilty.

Murphy and another former employee were arrested in July 2019 and charged with sexually assaulting David Meehan, who later became the first of more than 1,100 former residents who have sued the state alleging physical, sexual or emotional abuse spanning six decades.

Murphy’s attorney, Charles Keefe, did not return a phone call Tuesday, but a former attorney said he has denied the allegations involving Meehan and “anything like them regarding anybody no matter who the accuser might be or when it took place.”

Concurrent with Murphy’s arrest, the attorney general’s office launched a broad investigation into the facility, now called the Sununu Youth Services Center. A total of 11 men have been arrested, though charges against one were dropped due to a lack of evidence, another was found incompetent to stand trial and a third died awaiting trial. Murphy is the fourth to go to trial.

In addition to Asbury, Stanley Watson was convicted this week of three counts of aggravated sexual assault against two boys. Another case that ended in a hung jury is expected to be re-tried later this year.

Before his arrest, Murphy worked as a clubhouse attendant for the Boston Red Sox, which suspended him when it learned of the allegations. He took that job in 2007 after working as a special education teacher and assistant high school basketball coach in Massachusetts, according to a 2010 interview with the Lowell Sun.

The Associated Press generally does not identify those who say they were victims of sexual assault unless they have come forward publicly, as Meehan and Gilpatrick have done. Meehan’s lawsuit is the only civil case to go to trial so far. A jury awarded him $38 million in May, though that verdict remains in dispute as the state seeks to reduce the amount to $475,000.

The youth center, which once housed upward of 100 children but now typically serves fewer than a dozen, is named for former Gov. John H. Sununu. Lawmakers have approved closing the facility, which now only houses those accused or convicted of the most serious violent crimes, and replacing it with a much smaller building in a new location.

President Joe Biden is bestowing the second highest civilian medal on Liz Cheney and Bennie Thompson — the lawmakers who led the congressional investigation into the violent Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot by Donald Trump’s supporters, and who Trump has said should be jailed.

Biden will award the Presidential Citizens Medal to 20 people in a ceremony Thursday at the White House, including Americans who fought for marriage equality, a pioneer in treating wounded soldiers, and two of the president’s longtime friends, former Sens. Ted Kaufman, D-Del., and Chris Dodd, D-Conn.

“President Biden believes these Americans are bonded by their common decency and commitment to serving others,” the White House said in a statement. “The country is better because of their dedication and sacrifice.”

Biden last year honored people who were involved in defending the Capitol from the rioters, or who helped safeguard the will of American voters during the 2020 presidential election, when Trump tried and failed to overturn the results.

Cheney, who was a Republican representative from Wyoming, and Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, led the House committee that probed the insurrection. Cheney later said she would vote for Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race even campaigned with her, raising Trump’s ire. Biden has been considering whether to offer preemptive pardons to Cheney and others Trump has targeted.

Trump, who won the 2024 election and will take office Jan. 20, still refuses to back away from his lies about the 2020 presidential race and has said he would pardon the rioters once he takes office.

During an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Trump said, “Cheney did something that’s inexcusable, along with Thompson and the people on the un-select committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps,” claiming without evidence they “deleted and destroyed” testimony they collected.

“Honestly, they should go to jail,” he said.

Biden is also giving the award to attorney Mary Bonauto, who fought to legalize same-sex marriage, and Evan Wolfson, a leader of the marriage equality movement.

Other honorees include Frank Butler, who set new standards for using tourniquets on war injuries; Diane Carlson Evans, an Army nurse during the Vietnam War who founded the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Foundation; and Eleanor Smeal, an activist who led women’s rights protests in the 1970s and fought for equal pay.

He’s also giving the award to photographer Bobby Sager, academics Thomas Vallely and Paula Wallace, and Frances Visco, the president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition.

Other former lawmakers being honored include former Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J.; former Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, the first woman to represent Kansas; and former Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., who championed gun safety measures after her son and husband were shot to death.

Biden will honor four people posthumously: Joseph Galloway, a former war correspondent who wrote about the first major battle in Vietnam in the book “We Were Soldiers Once … and Young”; civil rights advocate and attorney Louis Lorenzo Redding; former Delaware state judge Collins Seitz; and Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi, who was held with other Japanese Americans during World War II and challenged the detention.

The Presidential Citizens Medal, created by President Richard Nixon in 1969, is the country’s second highest civilian honor after the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It is awarded to those who “performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens.”

ROME — Pope Francis inaugurated his Holy Year at Rome’s main prison on Thursday, bringing a message of hope to inmates and involving them in the Catholic Church’s once every quarter-century celebration that is expected to bring about 32 million pilgrims to Rome.

Francis stood up from his wheelchair, knocked on the door to the chapel at Rebibbia prison and walked across the threshold, reenacting the gesture he performed at the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica two nights earlier on Christmas Eve.

The opening of the Holy Door at the basilica officially kicked of the Jubilee year, a church tradition dating to 1300 that nowadays occurs every 25 years and involves the faithful coming to Rome on pilgrimages.

“The first Holy Door I opened at Christmas in St. Peter’s. I wanted the second one to be here, in a prison,” Francis told the inmates before he entered. “I wanted each of us here, inside and out, to have the possibility of throwing open the door of our hearts and understanding that hope doesn’t disappoint.”

Francis dedicated the 2025 Jubilee to hope and made clear that prisoners would be an important part of it: The final grand event of the Jubilee is a special Mass for inmates at St. Peter’s on Dec. 14, 2025. Francis has long made prison ministry an important part of his priestly vocation and has made several visits to Rebibbia since becoming pope in 2013 while also including prison visits in many of his foreign trips.

His message is always one of hope, believing that people who are serving prison sentences need something to look forward to more than most. That is especially true in Italy, where prison overcrowding and inmate suicides are at record highs, according to the Antigone Association, which tracks prison conditions.

According to Antigone’s 2024 report, 88 prisoners killed themselves in Italian lockups this year — more than any other year — and Italy’s inmate population was 132% over the system’s capacity.

In his homily, Francis suggested the prisoners think of hope as an anchor that is fixed on the ground and that they try to hold tight to the rope that is attached to it, even if it sometimes hurts their hands.

“Hold onto the rope of hope, hold onto the anchor,” Francis said. “Never let it go.”

Francis’ outing to Rebibbia on a frigid morning was his final big event of the week after he celebrated Christmas Eve Mass on Tuesday evening at St. Peter’s Basilica and delivered his Christmas Day blessing from the loggia overlooking the square.

The 88-year-old pope, who often suffers from respiratory infections in winter, has a few days to rest before gearing up for New Year’s Eve vigil and Mass the following day.

Francis’ 2025 involves a dizzying calendar of Jubilee events that will sorely test his stamina, with special Jubilee Masses for all the main groups of pilgrims who are being celebrated during the year: Adolescents, migrants, teachers and law enforcement, among others.

So far, he has only one foreign trip under study: A May visit to Turkey to commemorate the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, Christianity’s first ecumenical council.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.