Julian Leshay/Special to NorthJersey.com / USA TODAY NETWORK
Every December, cities around the world brace themselves for a deluge of drunken revelers decked out in red suits and fake white beards partaking in the bar crawl known as SantaCon. The charity aspect at the center of many of them tends to be an afterthought among participants, and that’s allegedly the case with the man in charge of the massive gathering in New York City based on the fraud charges he’s been hit with.
SantaCon has a history that stretches back to 1994 and can credit its creation to the Cacophony Society, a group known for pulling public pranks in San Francisco that attempted to cause a scene by getting a bunch of people to dress up as St. Nick and parade through the streets.
It eventually made its way to other places, including New York City, which welcomed SantaCon for the first time in 1998 and has spent close to three decades grappling with what became a fairly infamous event that eventually became associated with drunk fistfights on streets covered in vomit, urine, and passed-out partiers.
Its organizers have frequently attempted to deflect from the negativity surrounding the event in The Big Apple by emphasizing the money they’re able to raise for charity. However, there was a paper trail that suggested it was not as much as they’d led people to believe, and one man has now been hit with criminal charges as a result.
SantaCon president Stefan Pildes was arrested on fraud charges for allegedly misappropriating funds from the event
You don’t need to pay a single cent to participate in SantaCon. However, organizers who oversee the event in New York City have long encouraged people to purchase “official” badges to help cover the cost of permits and other expenses while noting funds that are left over will be donated to charity, including City Harvest and the City Parks Foundation.
In 2023, Gothamist took a look beneath the hood by examining documents that show “less than a fifth” of the $1.4 million SantaCon had raised between 2014 and 2022 had actually gone to charity, highlighting other expenditures like the purchase of hula hoops and costumes for Burning Man and cryptocurrency investments that lost close to $18,000.
Stefan Pildes, the man who oversees SantaCon through the tax-exempt non-profit Participatory Safety, Inc., downplayed concerns about potential misappropriation of funds at the time. However, it appears there was fire behind the smoke.
According to a press release the Department of Justice issued on Wednesday, Pildes has been charged with wire fraud over accusations he funneled half of the $2.7 million raised between 2019 and 2024 to a “slush fund” he used to pay for personal expenses.
It asserts the 50-year-old “defrauded tens of thousands of individuals and small business owners” by lying about how the money he collected would be used, saying “he spent SantaCon proceeds on extensive renovations to a lakefront property in New Jersey, concert tickets, luxury vacations, extravagant meals, and a luxury vehicle.”
Pildes was arrested on Wednesday but has not entered a plea in court. It’s unclear how this will impact SantaCon in NYC moving forward, but the countdown to this year’s event (scheduled for December 12th) is still live on the website.