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SantaCon NYC organizer charged with using charity money on personal 'slush fund'
By
Samantha Max
Published Apr 15, 2026
Modified Apr 15, 2026
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Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images
By
Samantha Max
Published Apr 15, 2026
Modified Apr 15, 2026
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The organizer of SantaCon, an annual Christmas-themed bar crawl that claims to raise money for charity, was arrested on a federal wire fraud charge Wednesday, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York.
Federal prosecutors said founder Stefan Pildes, 50, used SantaCon to raise at least $2.7 million between 2019 and 2024. Just a small portion of that money actually went to charity, the indictment states. Most of the proceeds went to a “slush fund” Pildes used for concert tickets, fine dining, luxury vacations and home renovations, according to the charging papers.
“Pildes allegedly stole Christmas from tens of thousands of victims and deprived local charities of more than $1 million,” FBI Assistant Director in Charge James Barnacle Jr. said in a statement. “The FBI continues to root out scrooges that greedily exploit the goodwill of New Yorkers.”
Attorney information for Pildes was not immediately available. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
About 25,000 people dressed in Santa costumes and other festive holiday garb descend on Manhattan each year for the Christmas extravaganza, which is advertised as a charity event, according to the indictment. But a 2023 Gothamist investigation revealed that only a fraction of the organization’s proceeds had been donated to registered nonprofit organizations. Between 2014 and 2022, more than a third of the money went to people and groups connected to the annual Burning Man festival in Nevada, including hula hoopers and dance parades, according to a Gothamist analysis of tax documents.
Pildes confirmed Burning Man-related expenditures to Gothamist at the time. For instance, he said the nonprofit that organizes SantaCon spent money on a post-Burning Man party. He said that money was paid back to the nonprofit as a zero-interest loan, but he did not say by whom.
Pildes also told Gothamist that SantaCon started as a much smaller undertaking, with a flash mob and eventually a canned food and toy drive. As the event grew over time, he said, police asked the organizers to rein in the event.
“We thought the best way to rein it in was to turn it into a charity,” Pildes told Gothamist in 2023.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to clarify a statement by Pildes about how Santacon funds were spent in connection with Burning Man.
Tagged
christmas
events
manhattan
new york city
public safety
santacon
Samantha Max
Samantha reports on whether New Yorkers feel safe and whether the institutions that are supposed to protect them are working. Before coming to WNYC/Gothamist, she spent three years covering the criminal justice system in Tennessee for Nashville Public Radio. Her reporting on Nashville's police department received multiple awards, including the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize. Samantha was also part of the inaugural class of Report for America, a service journalism program that sends up-and-coming reporters to local newsrooms across the country. She is a Northwestern University grad, a Baltimore native and fluent in Spanish. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal: samanthamaxwnyc.93.
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