{"id":198269,"date":"2026-04-15T17:07:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T17:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/198269\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T17:07:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T17:07:09","slug":"popular-nyc-santacon-charity-fundraiser-was-more-con-than-claus-authorities-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/198269\/","title":{"rendered":"Popular NYC SantaCon charity fundraiser was more con than Claus, authorities say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A SantaCon charity fundraiser that floods New York City with inebriated young people in red and white Santa costumes every holiday season was true to its name: a con, federal authorities said as they arrested its organizer.<\/p>\n<p>Stefan Pildes, 50, of Hewitt, New Jersey, was arrested on Wednesday and awaited an appearance in Manhattan federal court, where an indictment charging him with wire fraud was unsealed.<\/p>\n<p>Federal authorities said he donated to charity only a small fraction of the $2.7 million he raised through SantaCon events from 2019 to 2024.<\/p>\n<p>A message seeking comment was sent to an attorney for Pildes. The defendant was to make an initial appearance before a magistrate judge Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities said he siphoned more than half of the proceeds raised each year to an entity he controlled so that he could finance personal needs, including renovations to a lakefront property in New Jersey, concert tickets, luxury vacations, extravagant meals and a luxury vehicle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A SantaCon charity fundraiser that floods New York City with inebriated young people in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,75,9,24,63,833,834,3065,2336,829,831,79004,79005],"class_list":{"0":"post-198269","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn","8":"tag-brooklyn","9":"tag-brooklyn-headlines","10":"tag-brooklyn-news","11":"tag-manhattan","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-package-100024-ap-online","16":"tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","17":"tag-product-30083-ap-new-york-city-news-no-weather","18":"tag-product-30085-ap-new-york-state-news-no-weather","19":"tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","20":"tag-product-31998-ap-online-national-news","21":"tag-santacon-fraud-charge-pildes","22":"tag-stefan-pildes"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}