George Santos' lawyer asks to keep identities of those who secured U.S. rep's $500,000 bond...

A lawyer for indicted Rep. George Santos on Monday asked the judge overseeing the case to keep the names of the people who put up the New York Republican's $500,000 bond sealed.

Several news organizations requested that the names of the co-signers of Santos’ bond be released following the lawmaker’s indictment last month. In a letter Monday to U.S. Magistrate Judge Anne Shields, Joseph Murray, Santos’ lawyer, argued that unsealing the names of the co-signers would put them in a position to “likely to suffer great distress, may lose their jobs, and God forbid, may suffer physical injury.”

“There is little doubt that the suretors will suffer some unnecessary form of retaliation if their identities and employment are revealed,” Murray wrote.

Murray said his client “would rather surrender to pretrial detainment than subject these suretors to what will inevitably come” if their names are publicly released.