'I felt like we were in "Goodfellas''': How George Santos wooed investors for alleged Ponzi scheme

[Zorro]

Accounts gathered by The Post detail how Santos used lavish dinner, inflated credentials to pitch Harbor City securities

George Santos graciously welcomed his three guests to Il Bacco Ristorante in Queens. Restaurant staff took their coats at the door and escorted them to a private dining room upstairs. Santos had with him business cards from Harbor City Capital, the Florida-based investment firm where he worked.

He was ready to make his pitch.

With him that night in November 2020 was Christian Lopez, who two years prior was badly injured when a drunk driver smashed into his parked car near where he lived in Queens. His injuries required four surgeries. Lopez had been awarded $2 million in insurance money two months earlier — a fact that Lopez’s attorney said she had shared with Santos, a longtime acquaintance.

“I felt like we were in ‘Goodfellas,’ like we were in a mafia movie,” Lopez, 35, told The Washington Post. “They were like, ‘Hello, I see you are here with George, right this way.’ Bringing us to this fancy restaurant and doing all this, I felt like he was doing it to capture us.”

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