A Christmas Wish Come True—the Guy Who Runs SantaCon Is Going to Jail

Citizens of New York! (And all the rest of you, too.) Consider yourselves FREE from the tyrannical yule. The man responsible for SantaCon is finally being put behind bars. Justice is being served, and the delicate balance of the universe, as well as our collective blood alcohol concentration, is finally being restored.

On Wednesday, the founder and president of NYC’s SantaCon, Stefan Pildes, was arrested for wire fraud, i.e., pocketing charity money. For those uninitiated, SantaCon is a global pub crawl/charity fundraising event held every December, with its largest gathering taking place in New York City, where a bunch of East Village menaces get in the Christmas spirit by littering the streets with cheap Santa hats, crushed cans of Guinness, and vomit. SantaCon’s website claims that a purchased ticket “goes directly to Santa’s charity drive,” which supports nonprofits like City Harvest, City Parks Foundation, and, sure, Burning Man too.

But according to a statement released by the U.S. Attorney’s office, Pildes pocketed over half of the $2.7 million raised into a slush fund, which he spent on “concert tickets, luxury vacations, extravagant meals,” and, I’m assuming, on affording his NYC apartment. 

“As alleged, Stefan 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,” U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in a statement. “He took advantage of New Yorkers’ generous holiday spirit to finance his lifestyle through personal expenses, big and small. No matter how you dress it up, fraud is fraud.”

And happy as I am that we’re putting away fraudsters, I’m happier that someone is finally being held responsible for the abomination that is SantaCon, because as it turns out, Pildes is the modern-day Grinch.

“Pildes allegedly stole Christmas from tens of thousands of victims and deprived local charities of more than one million dollars. The FBI continues to root out scrooges that greedily exploit the goodwill of New Yorkers,” said FBI Assistant Director James C. Barnacle, Jr. In other news, someone at the FBI is named James C. Barnacle Jr., but we don’t have time to unpack that. 

What’s extra depressing about the whole SantaCon tradition is that the original conceit was rooted in a local counterculture movement, started by a San Francisco performance art group, the Cacophony Society, in the 90s—but alas, like many time-honored traditions, it was co-opted into a frat party. (See also the presidential Cabinet.)

But as long as there are still East Village menaces and peppermint schnapps, we will never truly be free of the terror that is SantaCon. It’s up to us to change, and when Pildes finally learns that Christmas is about so much more than wire fraud, may his small heart grow three sizes.

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