Thousands of revelers dressed as Santa Claus and other famous characters take part in the annual SantaCon Pub Crawl on Saturday, December 13, 2025 in New York City, USA.
Selcuk Achar | Anadolu | Getty Images
Federal prosecutors in New York announced that the president of SantaCon was arrested Wednesday on federal criminal charges alleging he used a ticketed Christmas bar crawl event to divert hundreds of thousands of dollars earmarked for charity.
According to the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, defendant Stephen Pildes said, “SantaCon’s proceeds were used to pay for extensive renovations to a lakefront property in New Jersey, concert tickets, luxury vacations, lavish meals, and luxury cars.”
Pildes, 50, “promoted SantaCon as a philanthropic event, but instead of donating the millions of dollars he raised, he ran his own fraudulent game,” U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in a statement.
“He capitalized on New Yorkers’ generous holiday spirit and financed his lifestyle with personal expenses large and small,” Clayton said.
Prosecutors said Pildes raised at least $2.7 million for charities from 2019 to 2024, but diverted more than half of it to a “slush fund.”
The Hewitt, New Jersey, resident was charged with one count of wire fraud. He is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Wednesday afternoon.
Prosecutors said the suspect “defrauded tens of thousands of individuals and small business owners” who attended Santacon, which annually brings about 25,000 people dressed as Santa Claus and other holiday characters to New York City bars and restaurants.
According to prosecutors, Pildes served as the chairman and directed the management of Participatory Safety, Inc., a nonprofit organization that organizes SantaCon.
James Barnacle Jr., the FBI’s deputy director in charge of the New York field office, said Pildes “is suspected of stealing Christmas from tens of thousands of victims and taking more than $1 million from local charities.”
“The FBI continues to root out unscrupulous agents who greedily exploit the goodwill of New Yorkers,” Barnacle said in a statement.
Mr. Pildes’ lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
