NORFOLK, Virginia — The Daily Caller News Foundation visited two southern Virginia properties at the center of fraud and misconduct claims made against Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James and found that James does not appear to be a resident of either home.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) referred James to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for potential investigation of alleged mortgage fraud on Monday, referring to a White Collar Fraud report presenting evidence that James may have committed mortgage fraud with one property while filing inconsistent disclosure reports about loans on the other. The DCNF visited both homes in question on Wednesday, discovering that both residences are apparently inhabited by multiple people, but apparently not James.
One of the properties is a modest two-story home located in a quiet residential Norfolk neighborhood. James is alleged to have characterized the home as her “principal residence” in paperwork filed August 2023 — possibly to secure more favorable loan terms — despite serving at the time as New York’s attorney general, a position that requires primary residence in New York state while it is held.
When the DCNF arrived at the house on Wednesday afternoon, all of the blinds were drawn, and a female yelled out from within the home — before the DCNF identified itself or asked any questions — that she did not have any comment to share. The voice from inside the home did not sound at all like James’ voice as heard in press conferences.
The DCNF interviewed neighbors who reside in the immediate vicinity of the home to learn more about who may or may not be living in the house. Notably, there was only one vehicle in the driveway upon the DCNF’s first pass by the home, but a second vehicle had parked in the driveway at some point in the 30 or so minutes that elapsed before the DCNF passed by the home again.
One neighbor told the DCNF that he believes a black woman and children inhabit the home, which had a basketball hoop in the driveway, but did not recognize James when shown a photo. A second neighbor commented only to say that “it’s not the lady from New York,” presumably James, living in the residence.
Notably, James submitted the August 2023 paperwork for this particular home just weeks before she began her trial against President Donald Trump, which concluded with Trump being ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in fines as the 2024 presidential race took shape.
When the DCNF arrived at the second home, a two-story house in a different Norfolk neighborhood, two of its residents were on the porch outside the front door. One of the residents ordered the DCNF to leave without answering questions as to whether she knew James or had any relationship with her. The resident said that whether or not she or the property is connected to James “doesn’t matter.”
None of the residents of neighboring homes knew much about the inhabitants of the second property.
James purchased the second residence in 2020, according to White Collar Fraud. James financed the purchase with a mortgage that remains active today, though she did not disclose the loan on her financial disclosures between 2020 and 2023.
James reported several thousand dollars of rental income at the property in 2020, and then did not list any rental income in her disclosures between 2021 and 2023, according to White Collar Fraud. In her financial disclosure for 2023, James added two more lenders for the home to her paperwork, but White Collar Fraud could not identify any evidence of either loan in the residence’s chain of title.
White Collar Fraud also did not find any liens on record from either of the two new lenders, raising suspicions about why the home is so over-leveraged. The outlet speculated that the unusual mortgage situation possibly indicates that the two loans first reported in 2023 may not have ever existed, may have been misrepresented or may have been included in filings to “present a fictitious liability profile while avoiding mandatory disclosure.”
Beyond the two Norfolk properties, James is also alleged to have consistently misclassified a multi-family property she owns in Brooklyn, New York, as a four-family unit instead of a five-family unit, according to White Collar Fraud. The outlet suggested that the repeated misidentification could have enabled James to secure more favorable loan terms because relevant law defines any property that holds five or more families as a commercial property, a classification that is typically subject to more stringent loan terms.
James’ office did not respond to a request for comment.
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