The Manhattan judge overseeing the fraud case involving SantaCon’s founder is no fan of the notoriously boozy Christmas season bar crawl.
“Like anyone in New York, I am assaulted by SantaCon,” federal Judge Colleen McMahon said during a hearing for Stefan Pildes, who prosecutors say skimmed more than a million dollars from the event’s ticket sales that had been earmarked for charity — and instead went to fund his luxury vacations, a high-end car and other extravagances.
McMahon, in asking prosecutors to confirm that the case pertained to the infamous event, said, “You mean the drunken kids who walk around in Santa costumes?
“Why they buy tickets, I have no idea,” she said.
The judge said she stays home during the annual all-day bar crawl — which brings an army of Kris Kringle cosplayers to the Big Apple — and dreads “cleaning up vomit” from the street afterward.
Pildes, 50, had no noticeable expression in court as the judge gave her unfiltered thoughts on the annual day of debauchery, which is widely reviled by locals.
The accused scammer’s lawyer, Noam Biale, acknowledged during the hearing that the booze-filled bacchanal is “a source of joy to many, and an annoyance to some.”
Pildes has pleaded not guilty to wire fraud for allegedly diverting more than half of the $2.7 million the event purportedly raised for charity from 2019 to 2024 through ticket sales to his personal “slush fund.”
The accused fraudster allegedly spent roughly $124,000 of the cash on leasing a luxury apartment in Manhattan, another $100,000 on a boutique resort in Costa Rica and more allegedly ill-gotten funds on renovations to a New Jersey lakefront property.
The SantaCon founder has advertised the event as a “charitable” non-profit and promised customers that the proceeds of their ticket sales would be donated to worthy causes, prosecutors said.
His lawyer insisted Tuesday that “Stefan Pildes did not defraud anyone.
“Every participant in SantaCon got exactly what they bargained for: mirth, merriment, and drunken debauchery,” Biale The Post. “We look forward to advocating on Stefan’s behalf.”
