New York Attorney General Letitia James admitted a Virginia property was an “investment” on financial disclosure forms while allegedly making false statements to a bank to secure a more favorable loan that prohibited its use as a rental, putting her at risk of spending decades behind bars.
The three-bedroom home in Norfolk, Virginia, purchased by James in August 2020 and cited in Thursday’s federal indictment, was listed in the “real estate” section of her 2020 through 2023 financial disclosures to the New York State Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government as an “investment,” valued between “$100,000 to under $150,000.”
In her 2024 ethics filing, however, James changed the classification of the Norfolk property, designating it as “real property” rather than an “investment,” according to documents reviewed by the New York Post.
The AG also upped the estimated value of the single-family home to “$150,000 to under $250,000,” the outlet reported.
James filed her 2024 financial disclosure in May, one month after Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte referred a criminal complaint to the Justice Department alleging she had falsified records to obtain home loans for another property in Norfolk, Virginia.
It remains unclear why she changed the property’s designation from “investment” to “real property” in that filing, The Post noted.
Between 2021 and 2024, James did not report any income from the Norfolk home named in the indictment. In her 2020 disclosure, however, she listed an “investment real property” in Norfolk that generated between $1,000 and $5,000 in income, though it is unclear whether that listing referred to the same property.
Federal prosecutors allege that Letitia James misrepresented her intended use of the property when she obtained a $109,600 mortgage loan from OVM Financial, which was backed by Fannie Mae, to purchase the $137,000 home in 2020.
According to the indictment, James agreed to a “Second Home Rider” when she secured the loan which required the attorney general to “occupy and use the property as her secondary residence, and prohibited its use as a timesharing or other shared ownership arrangement or agreement that requires her either to rent the property or give any other person any control over the occupancy or use of the property.”
“Despite these representations,” prosecutors wrote, the Norfolk property “was not occupied or used by James as a secondary residence and was instead used as a rental investment property.”
According to the Justice Department, the alleged misrepresentation enabled James to secure a mortgage rate that would not have been available if she had disclosed plans to use the property as a rental. Prosecutors contend that the lower rate resulted in “ill-gotten gains” totaling approximately $18,933 over the life of the loan.
James misrepresented her intended use of the property on a homeowners’ insurance application, indicating that the house would be “owner occupied.”
On her federal tax forms, however, James treated the Norfolk home as “rental real estate,” reporting “thousand(s) of dollars in rents received” and “claiming deductions for expenses relating to the property,” according to the indictment.
James has been charged with bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution.
If convicted on both counts, she faces a maximum sentence of 60 years in prison and fines of up to $2 million.
Her first appearance in federal court in Virginia is scheduled for October 24. According to experts, James could rack up as much as $10 million in legal bills defending herself from the charges.
“I think all in, it’s probably going to be in the range of $5 to $10 million,” former prosecutor Neama Rahmani told The Post Friday.
New York state has a $10 million taxpayer-funded legal defense fund that Attorney General Letitia James is eligible to use, but her office has stated she will not draw from it.
The state comptroller’s office confirmed that none of the allocated funds have been used.
James, who was first elected in 2018 and earns an annual salary of $220,000, is instead relying on the Democratic Attorneys General Association to cover her legal defense costs, The Post reported.