If you’ve ever lived in NYC, Seattle, San Francisco, LA, Portland, and many other places, or even if you haven’t, you probably know the terror that is SantaCon. Every December, a band of roving, drunken revelers dressed in Santa, elf, or Christmas-adjacent costumes take to the streets in a massive bar crawl, purportedly for Charity, and menace the citizens of whatever town they’ve overrun. But it turns out, SantaCon isn’t just spiritually a villain, it’s literally one. And if you feel like you were personally victimized by organizer Regina George, we mean, Stefan Pildes, you can let the FBI know today.
Evidently, Pildes, who sold ticketed entry to SantaCon events, claimed that profits would go to charity, but Gothamist revealed that “less than a fifth of that money has gone to registered nonprofits.” And instead, as U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton shares, “Pildes 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.” Among other things, Pildes used the SantaCon money earmarked for charity to “pay for extensive renovations to a lakefront property in New Jersey, luxury vacations in Hawaii, Las Vegas, and Vail, Colorado, concert tickets, extravagant meals, and a luxury vehicle, prosecutors said.
Phew, we knew SantaCon was rotten through and through. While you can’t legally complain about being hassled on the subway, if you feel you were in some way victimized by SantaCon in a way pertinent to the federal criminal indictment, you can share your information with the FBI.
The official Santa Con investigation page notes:
The FBI’s New York Division is seeking to identify potential victims of Stefan Pildes, who organized and operated the annual SantaCon event in New York City, from at least 2019 to present. Pildes was recently charged with wire fraud. The FBI believes Pildes primarily targeted SantaCon attendees who purchased tickets to the event, as well as bars that participated in the event, between the timeframe of October 2019 to present.
If you were victimized by Stefan Pildes, please fill out this short form.
If you know of someone else who has possibly been victimized by Stefan Pildes, please encourage them to complete the form themselves.
The FBI is legally mandated to identify victims of federal crimes it investigates. Victims may be eligible for certain services, restitution, and rights under federal and/or state law. Your responses are voluntary but may be useful in the federal investigation and to identify you as a potential victim. Based on the responses provided, you may be contacted by the FBI and asked to provide additional information.
Well, godspeed to all. Hopefully, no successor will rise to take SantaCon’s place. Even if it was actually for charity, we think EasterBunnyCon would be too much for us.