Indicted New York Attorney General Letitia James repeatedly listed her Virginia home as an “investment” property in financial disclosure forms – despite allegedly making false claims to a bank to obtain a favorable loan that barred her from using the house as a rental.
The three bedroom Norfolk, Va., home James purchased in August of 2020 – named in Thursday’s federal grand jury indictment – is listed in the “real estate” section of James’ 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 disclosures to the New York State Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government as an “investment,” valued at between “$100,000 to under $150,000.”
However, in her 2024 ethics filing, James designated the Norfolk home as “real property,” rather than an “investment.”
The AG also upped the estimated value of the single-family home to “$150,000 to under $250,000.”
The 2024 disclosure was filed in May of this year – a month after Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director William Pulte sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department alleging that James had “falsified records” to obtain home loans for a different Norfolk, Va., property.
It’s unclear why James changed the word “investment” to “real property” on her 2024 disclosure.
James did not disclose generating any income from the Norfolk home at the center of the indictment in her ethics filings between 2021-2024.
In her 2020 disclosures, James noted that an “investment real property” in Norfolk brought in between $1,000 and $5,000 in income. However, it is unclear whether this property is the same one mentioned in the indictment.
The New York attorney general’s office and James’ lawyer did not respond to The Post’s requests for comment.
Federal prosecutors allege that James misrepresented how she would use the property when she obtained a $109,600 mortgage loan – originated by OVM Financial and backed by Fannie Mae – to purchase the $137,000 home in 2020.
James agreed to a “Second Home Rider” when she took out the loan, according to the indictment, 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.”
The “misrepresentation” allowed James to obtain a mortgage rate that would not have been available had she informed the lender that she planned to rent the home out, according to the DOJ.
Her “ill-gotten gains” from the lower mortgage rate amounted to “approximately $18,933 over the life of the loan,” prosecutors allege.
James further misrepresented her intended use of the property on a homeowners’ insurance application, which indicated 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 claims to a financial institution.
If convicted on both counts, James faces up to 60 years in prison and a fine of up to $2 million.
She’s expected to make her first appearance in federal court in Virginia on Oct. 24.
James could rack up as much as $10 million in legal bills defending herself from the charges, according to experts.
“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.
The Empire State has a taxpayer-funded $10 million legal defense fund in place that James could tap into, though her office has said she won’t be using it.
The state comptroller’s office confirmed that none of the $10 million in the stash has been drawn.
James, who was first elected in 2018 and makes $220,000 a year, is instead turning to the national Democratic Attorneys General Association to cover her legal defense bills.
Abbe Lowell, the high-profile defense attorney representing James, could be billing over $1,000 an hour – on top of taking a $1 million retainer fee – based on the going rate for top lawyers, Rahmani said.
But legal eagles also said that some lawyers may even take up the case pro-bono given its high-profile nature and some left-leaning attorneys’ political convictions to stand up for James, a Democrat.
“I think a lot of amazing attorneys would be happy to step up and do this for free,” former prosecutor Duncan Levin said.
