Guest post by Joel Gilbert

Letitia James’s New York State mortgage records indicate that she committed mortgage fraud on a $200,000 “Credit Line Mortgage” with Citizens Bank in 2021.

Like other mortgages, it requires a signed note, a mortgage document, and recording with the county clerk.

The mortgage document shows that James misrepresented her five-unit apartment building as a single-family dwelling.

This false claim allowed James to avoid significantly higher commercial loan closing costs and a higher interest rate.

In New York, the number of units in a property determines whether a loan qualifies as a residential mortgage with lower interest rates (1 to 4 family dwellings) or whether it’s a commercial/multifamily building mortgage with higher interest rates and closing costs (5 or more dwelling units).

The official Certificate of Occupancy for Letitia James’s building at 296 Lafayette Avenue in Brooklyn describes it as a “FIVE (5) FAMILY DWELLING.”

That designation is the one and only controlling legal authority for unit count.

Yet for two decades after buying the property in 2001, James refinanced multiple times while claiming the building had only four units.

This misrepresentation allowed James to qualify for lower residential interest rates she was not entitled to receive.

Even on her most recent refinancing on August 23, 2019, the mortgage document lists four units.

On June 21, 2021, Letitia James signed the $200,000 Credit Line Mortgage with Citizens Bank for a 25-year term. On the first page of the agreement, under “PROPERTY DATA,” the Property Type is listed as “DWELLING ONLY—1 FAMILY.”

This went far beyond James’s past misrepresentations, as she reduced the number to just one.

The reason for the overkill appears clear: commercial loan closing costs can be up to seven times higher than residential, and interest rates for commercial properties typically run 1 to 3 percentage points higher.

The Citizens mortgage document shows James’s “Fees and Taxes” were only $4,070, covering city and county taxes, a Tax Action Service Fee (TASF), and an MTA surcharge.

Had the property been correctly recorded as five dwelling units, James would have faced a commercial mortgage recording tax of roughly 2.8% of the loan amount, or about $5,600.

In addition, she would have been required to pay for a full commercial appraisal of around $5,000, title insurance, a survey, commercial underwriting, an origination fee, and legal costs.

Altogether, the closing costs would have landed in a range from $20,000 to $30,000, or 10 to 15% of the loan amount.

Under New York Penal Law Article 187, fraud involving a loan of more than $50,000 qualifies as Mortgage Fraud in the Second Degree (PL § 187.20), a Class C felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

However, because Citizens Bank is a federally insured FDIC institution, under 18 U.S.C. § 1014, James could see a potential sentence of up to 30 years in prison and heavy fines.

James may have previously been relying on statutes of limitations expirations to shield her.

In The Gateway Pundit in March 2025, I reported that James pretended to be married to her father in 1983 to qualify for a mortgage and that she obtained a US government HAMP loan in 2011 by falsely claiming her building had just 4 units.

For general nonviolent felony fraud, New York typically imposes a five-year statute of limitations. Under federal law (18 U.S.C. § 1014), making false statements to a bank/mortgage lender has a 10-year statute of limitations.

This means that Letita James’s 2021 Citizens Bank loan remains actionable until at least June 2026.

Whether or not Letitia James has repaid the $200,000 loan, and whether or not Citizens Bank suffered any damages, is irrelevant according to James’s own legal standards.

In her high-profile case against President Trump and the Trump Organization, Letitia James argued that fraud is unlawful even when it doesn’t produce a financial victim.

In court filings and statements, James emphasized that the key issue was the misrepresentation itself and that misconduct corrupted the marketplace and undermined the integrity of financial institutions.

The trial judge, Justice Arthur Engoron, explicitly agreed. In his rulings, he stated that whether banks lose money or are repaid is irrelevant under New York’s fraud statutes, and that fraud in business transactions does not require showing financial loss to a victim.

Letitia James’s hypocrisy is breathtaking. After Donald Trump’s fraud conviction, on February 16, 2024, James released a statement stating, “When powerful people cheat to get better loans, it comes at the expense of honest and hardworking people.

Everyday Americans cannot lie to a bank to get a mortgage to buy a home, and if they did, our government would throw the book at them.

There simply cannot be different rules for different people. Because no matter how big, rich, or powerful you think you are, no one is above the law.”

With this new revelation of her 2021 Credit Line Mortgage fraud against Citizens Bank, there is only one plausible action for Special Prosecutor Ed Martin: indict New York Attorney General Letitia James now for mortgage fraud, according to state and federal laws, and according to the prosecutorial standards that James herself laid out for him.

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Joel Gilbert is a Los Angeles-based film producer and president of Highway 61 Entertainment. He is the producer of the new film Roseanne Barr Is America. He is also the producer of: Dreams from My Real Father, The Trayvon Hoax, Trump: The Art of the Insult, and many other films on American politics and music icons. Gilbert is on Twitter: @JoelSGilbert.