1000’s of revelers who dressed as Santa Claus and different well-known characters, take part within the annual SantaCon pub crawl on Saturday, December 13, 2025, in New York Metropolis, United States.
Selcuk Acar | Anadolu | Getty Photos
The president of SantaCon was arrested on Wednesday on a federal legal indictment accusing him of utilizing the ticketed Christmas bar-crawl occasion to divert a whole lot of hundreds of {dollars} earmarked for charity to non-public use, New York federal prosecutors mentioned.
The defendant, Stefan Pildes, who claimed he didn’t obtain any compensation from SantaCon allegedly spent the diverted funds on in depth renovations to a lakefront property in New Jersey, luxurious holidays in Hawaii, Las Vegas and Vail, Colorado, live performance tickets, extrvagant meals and a luxurious automobile, based on the indictment unsealed in U.S. District Court docket for the Southern District of New York.
About $124,000 of the SantaCon funds had been spent towards leasing a luxurious condominium in Manhattan, and one other $100,000 was invested in a boutique resort in Costa Rica based by a good friend of Pildes, the indictment mentioned.
Pildes “donated solely a small fraction” of the roughly $2.7 million raised from SantaCon went to charity, based on the indictment in opposition to him.
Pildes, 50, “promoted SantaCon as an occasion grounded in charitable giving, however as an alternative of donating the tens of millions of {dollars} he raised, he ran his personal con sport,” U.S. Legal professional Jay Clayton mentioned in a press release.
“He took benefit of New Yorkers’ beneficiant vacation spirit to finance his way of life by way of private bills, massive and small,” Clayton mentioned.
Prosecutors mentioned Pildes raised at the least $2.7 million for charity from 2019 by way of 2024, however diverted greater than half of that cash obtained for his non-profit group, dubbed Participatory Security, went “to a slush fund.”
The resident of Hewitt, N.J., is charged with one rely of wire fraud. He’s anticipated to seem on Wednesday afternoon in Manhattan federal courtroom.
The indictment comes greater than two years after the information website Gothamist reported that an evaluation confirmed that Participatory Security raised “raised $1.4 million by way of SantaCon programming from late 2014 by way of the tip of 2022,” however that “lower than a fifth of that cash has gone to registered nonprofits.”
“Extra than a 3rd of the group’s whole giving throughout that interval went to teams or people who seem linked to Burning Man, the annual weeklong pageant in Nevada, together with organizations dedicated to hula hooping, dance parades, free costumes and extra,” Gothamist reported.
The report mentioned that the biggest donation by Participatory Security went to “a for-profit outfit: $66,340 to Spectaculum Productions, LLC, maker of the documentary movie ‘At Your Cervix,’ an exposé about pelvic exams carried out by medical college students on unconscious and non-consenting sufferers.
And in 2018, Participatory Security “misplaced $17,498 price of investments it made in cryptocurrencies – equal to a couple of third of its charitable giving that yr,” Gothamist reported. “Greater than $832,000 of the cash raised from SantaCon programming – or 59% – went to the nonprofit’s bills, not together with its charitable grants.”
Prosecutors mentioned he “defrauded tens of hundreds of people and small enterprise homeowners who participated in” SantaCon, which yearly attracts about 25,000 folks dressed as Santa Claus and different vacation characters to bars and eating places in New York Metropolis. Tickets for the occasion price between $10 and $20.
Pildes served as president of and managed the nonprofit entity that organizes SantaCon, Participatory Security, Inc., prosecutors mentioned.
The indictment in opposition to him mentioned that attendees had been instructed that proceeds from SantaCon would go to numerous charities. In December 2024, the indictment mentioned, Pildes on his web site mentioned ticket cash went “on to Santa’s charity drive,” and that “your cash shall be break up between the varied charities listed on this web page in addition to native charities alongside Santa’s route.”
FBI Assistant Director in Cost of the New York Area Workplace James Barnacle, Jr. mentioned Pildes “allegedly stole Christmas from tens of hundreds of victims and disadvantaged native charities of a couple of million {dollars}.”
“The FBI continues to root out scrooges that greedily exploit the goodwill of New Yorkers,” Barnacle mentioned in a press release.
A lawyer for Pildes didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
