Tag Archives: New York Attorney General Letitia James

Sometimes Criminals Are The Best Detectives In A Fraud Case

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I spent my teenage years living in central New Jersey. I remember the “Crazy Eddie” commercials. Crazy Eddie was a consumer electronics chain in the metropolitan New York City area. The company was owned by Eddie and Sam M. Antar. Eventually the company went public. Eddie and Sam began cooking the company’s books in order to increase the value of the stock. Eventually they got caught. Eddie was charged with securities fraud and insider trading; he fled the country. Sam agreed to testify if he was granted immunity.

An article posted at Hot Air on Tuesday reports:

Since 2009, Sam Antar has been a forensic accountant, working with federal and local law enforcement agencies, teaching them what to look for in paperwork – and where to look for paperwork – as well as digging on his own time into waste, fraud, and abuse, always on the hunt for white collar crime.

He is a man on a mission.

And way back in February, while going through the records from Letitia James’ ‘luxury campaign spending,‘ as he calls it, Sam came across some wonky-looking personal finance filings. Things weren’t adding up to the eagle-eyed Antar.

In February, the White Collar Fraud website reported:

After our recent investigations exposed New York Attorney General Letitia James’ pattern of luxury campaign spending and creative accounting, a deeper examination of her personal financial disclosures reveals troubling new questions about her property holdings and financial reporting.

The same pattern of obscured luxury that characterized her campaign spending now emerges in her personal financial statements, starting with a Virginia investment property that seems to defy financial logic. Purchased in August 2020, James values the single-family home at “$100,000 to under $150,000” in her 2023 financial disclosure. Yet somehow, this same property carries mortgages totaling up to $400,000 – potentially more than twice its declared value.

The article at Hot Air concludes:

Now, Antar’s work has everyone swarming James’ life in the files, and what they’re uncovering is astonishing in its blatant gaming of the system.

And as Antar says, James didn’t do this by herself – she had to have help.

Who is going to squeal to save themselves?

The tenants who live in the Brooklyn building that isn’t supposed to have tenants are speaking up, and that is really looking awkward all around for James.

…When a guy’s already done time for legendary crazy, there’s not much he’s going to worry about when he’s on the right trail of wrongdoing.

This is gonna be sumpthin’ to see.

This is not the first time someone convicted of a white-collar crime has wound up doing investigative work for the government, and based on the many times that has been successful, I suspect it won’t be the last.

A Sad Day For Equal Justice Under The Law

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The New York case against President Trump is an insult to the rule of law. There was no jury (not that you could find an unbiased jury in New York) and no one was claiming that President Trump’s actions had a negative impact on anyone. But even putting that aside, the idea that the government can simply accuse someone of a crime, find a like-minded judge, and seize someone’s assets is scary.

On Thursday, The Daily Caller noted the following:

Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James recently took the first step towards seizing former President Donald Trump’s assets, public records show.

James filed judgements against Trump, his sons and the Trump Organization on March 6 with the clerk’s office in Westchester County, where Trump owns a golf resort and private estate called Seven Springs, according to Bloomberg News. Judge Arthur Engoron issued a judgement in February finding that Trump must pay $454 million in James’ lawsuit, which alleged he perpetuated financial fraud by overestimating the value of his assets to obtain loans.

Trump’s legal team wrote in a filing earlier this week that he could not post bond in his appeal, moving to stay the execution of the judgment. Trump has four days to come up with the amount before the March 25 deadline.

“The amount of the judgment, with interest, exceeds $464 million, and very few bonding companies will consider a bond of anything approaching that magnitude…In short, ‘a bond of this size is rarely, if ever, seen,’” Trump’s attorneys wrote.

This is a sad day for America. How many businesses will be leaving New York as a result of this action?

Free Speech?

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On Sunday, Townhall reported that the firefighters who booed New York Attorney General Letitia James at a promotion ceremony recently will face consequences for their actions.

The article reports:

However, in the classes Democrat-led state of New York, those firefighters are facing consequences for their outbursts toward the woman who will do anything in her power to take former President Trump down. 

“Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump,” the crowd of firefighters shouted at James, while many booed. 

“Oh, come on. We’re in a house of God. First, Uhm, simmer down,” James said, attempting to simmer the crowd down. “Thank you for getting it out of your system.”

In a statement, FDNY Chief of Department John Hodgens said that the firefighters who disrupted James’s speech will be forced to take woke “re-education” classes. 

I don’t necessarily condone their behavior, but I think woke “re-education” classes are not the answer. I might want some basic classes on manners, but I am not sure that is the answer.

The article concludes:

The letter was sent out to each firefighter stating that they must report to headquarters, laying out the “next steps” in their punishment. 

A few of the “steps” each FDNY member has to follow are listed below: 

  • Have DC visit each firehouse that had a member promoted
  • Relay bullet point message
  • They should understand that BITS is gathering video and identifying members that brought discredit to the Department
  • We want the members to come forward. They will come to HQ to be educated on why their behavior is unacceptable

Does anyone wonder why police and firemen recruiting is down in New York?

What Is A Bill Of Attainder And Why Is It Important?

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Our Founding Fathers understood what it was like to live under a king. They also understood what it was like to live under a government that not only did not represent you, but could target you at any time. They wanted the new government they founded to represent the people and protect the people from the government.

On Tuesday, The American Spectator posted an article that points out that the continued lawfare against President Trump violates the law against a bill of attainder.

The article reports:

Yet so common was the bill of attainder in British history in pre-modern times that it was a fairly normal way of dealing with the rebellious — or, indeed, just those whom the authorities found uncongenial. And so much did the Founding Fathers dislike its use that they deemed it important enough to have its own mention in the Constitution, which expressly forbids it under Article I, Section 9, Clause 3: “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.”

But what is this strange creature?

The word “attainder” derives from the adjective “attainted,” which was used to define individuals whose legal rights had been removed. All of them. They lost the right to own property and bear titles; they could not enter into legal agreements, nor could their heirs inherit from them. They were often summarily executed, and they forfeited all their possessions to the state, in this case the Crown, or as much of it as the rulers could get their hands on. What makes bills of attainder unique in legislation — and insupportable — is that they imposed draconian penalties on specific individuals without the need to find them guilty in a court, for they had lost their right to a jury trial or, indeed, any trial at all.

Now, if this sounds hauntingly familiar in modern America, that’s because it should. Bills of attainder may be unconstitutional, but acting in ways essentially equivalent apparently is not.

Consider the lawfare being directed at Trump. Only the naïve or the prejudiced could seriously believe that the indictments leveled at him would be directed at anyone else. They’re aimed at one man, and his first name is Donald, his last name Trump.

Enter Judge Arthur Engoron, and the indictment for fraud brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

This case is astonishing on so many levels. First, no one is claiming injury here: Banks loaned money to Trump based on the value of his assets. Trump repaid the loan, with interest. The banks had not the least inclination to sue him, since they had suffered no injury.

The article notes:

If one were of a suspicious mind, one might surmise that Engoron imposed the most massive fines he could in order to make it as hard as possible for Trump to appeal his ruling.

Surely not!

Now consider how similar this is to a bill of attainder. First, such a bill removes the legal rights of the target. Engoron has made an appeal against his ruling as difficult as possible. Further, draconian penalties have been imposed on Trump without the need to find him guilty of anything in court. As with a bill of attainder, the target’s ability to hold offices and function is withdrawn. His property is seized and removed from his control. Finally, since there is no aggrieved party claiming redress, the Crown — the state, in this case — takes the wealth forfeited. His heirs are punished — not for what they did but because they are his sons.

This is a bill of attainder in fact, if not in name. It differs only in that it comes from a court rather than a legislature.

Obviously the wrong people are on trial.

Red Laws And Blue Laws

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On Thursday, Victor Davis Hanson posted an article at American Greatness about the use of the law as a political instrument. The contrasts how the law was applied in similar cases based on the politics of the person involved.

The article reports:

One state prosecutor and one civilian plaintiff have already won huge fines and damages from Donald Trump that may, with legal costs, exceed $500 million.

Trump awaits further civil and criminal liability in three other federal, state, and local indictments.

There are eerie commonalities in all these five court cases involving plaintiff E. Jean Carroll, Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, New York Attorney General Letitia James, federal special counsel Jack Smith, and Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis.

One, they are either unapologetically left-wing or associated with liberal causes. They filed their legal writs in big-city, left-wing America—Atlanta, New York, Washington—where liberal judges and jury pools predominate in a manner not characteristic of the country at large.

Two, they are overtly political. Bragg, James, and Willis have either campaigned for office or raised campaign funds by promising to get or even destroy Donald Trump.

The article notes:

Three, there would not be any of these cases had Donald Trump not run for the presidency or not been a conservative.

Carroll’s suit bypassed statute of limitation restrictions by prompting the intervention of a left-wing New York legislator. He passed a special bill, allowing a one-year window to waive the statute of limitations for sexual assault claims from decades past.

Until Trump, no New York prosecutor like James had ever filed a civil suit against a business for allegedly overvaluing real estate assets to obtain loans that bank auditors approved and were paid back in full, on time, and with sizable interest profits to the lending institutions.

Alvin Bragg bootstrapped a Trump private non-disclosure agreement into a federal campaign violation in a desperate effort to find something on Trump.

Smith is also charging Trump with insurrectionary activity. But Trump had never been so charged with insurrection, much less convicted of it.

Willis strained to find a way to criminalize Trump’s complaints about his loss of Georgia in the 2020 national election. She finally came up with a racketeering charge, usually more applicable to mafiosi and drug cartels.

Four, in all these cases, the charges could have been equally applicable to fellow left-wing public figures and officials.

Please follow the link to the article to read the entire article. What has  happened to our justice department in recent years reads more like Soviet justice than American justice.

Using The Law Against Your Political Opponents

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The story below is one of the things that makes me wonder about the future of America. Somehow we have lost the concept of equal justice under the law and many legal actions have become totally political.

On Tuesday, The Washington Examiner reported the following:

A POLITICIZED, GROSSLY UNFAIR LAWSUIT AGAINST TRUMP. Former President Donald Trump testified Monday at the trial of the lawsuit, filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James, alleging that Trump inflated the values of his real estate properties to receive lower interest rates on loans. It’s important to note that Trump has already lost the case. The judge, Arthur Engoron, weeks ago pronounced Trump guilty of the actions alleged, and what is going on now in court is the penalty phase, in which Engoron will decide whether to confiscate Trump’s business empire.

The punishment will be extraordinary and unprecedented. This is how Axios has described it: “Former President Donald Trump is at risk of losing the New York real estate empire that the rest of his career was built on. Forcibly dismantling Trump’s company is so unusual that no one is quite certain how it would play out.”

Engoron could decide to cancel the business certificates of all of Trump’s companies. “If the business certificates were canceled,” Axios continued, “the relevant assets — which include Trump Tower, Trump Park Avenue, 40 Wall Street, and Trump National Golf Course Hudson Valley — would be put under the control of a court-appointed receiver, who operates much like an executor of an estate. The receiver would continue to manage the properties, but also could be allowed by the court to sell some — particularly if cash was needed to pay off legal penalties or creditors. Trump, who views himself as a consummate dealmaker, would not be at the negotiating table.”

That is a punishment so out of line with the behavior alleged in this case that it boggles the mind. It is made possible by two factors: a bad law and a hyperpoliticized attorney general. On the bad law, New York’s Executive Law 65(12), the former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy wrote: “The law doesn’t require a showing of harm. The state need not prove the defendant even intended to defraud anyone, much less actually defrauded someone. It need not be established that any creditor or financial institution even relied on the defendant’s misrepresentations, that those misrepresentations were material, or that anyone was actually fooled by them.” There need be no victim — after all, in this case, no bank or financial institution is suing Trump for cheating them, nor does there need to be any crime involved — in fact, prosecutors looked at the same evidence and declined to charge Trump.

Hopefully this case will eventually suffer the same fate as the case against former Virginia Governor Bob McDonald. However, the damage done in getting there will be immense and inexcusable.

A Few Comments On The Trump Trial In New York

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From Jonathan Turley at The Daily Caller:

Fox News legal analyst and constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley laid out a major problem for Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James’ civil case against former President Donald Trump on Monday.

James sued Trump in Sept. 2022, accusing him of committed fraud to secure more favorable terms for loans. Judge Arthur Engoron ruled Tuesday that Trump and his businesses exaggerated his net worth and deceived banks and insurance companies.

…“But I also want to note that James’ comments ignore one thing, in front of that courthouse,” Turley continued. “She ran for office on the pledge to bag Donald Trump. She didn’t say on what grounds. She ran to bag him on any grounds, and so she doesn’t have any more credibility in making these comments than did the Trump team, for people who view this as a very political environment. You know, many of us wrote at the time that we were deeply concerned about a candidate for attorney general that was essentially pledging a trophy defendant as the basis for running for office. And she delivered it … And so I think that she has also damaged her own credibility in that effort.”

From Attorney Robert DuChemin at Substack:

…That is why I find it bizarre that New York would go after the Trump Organization for what the state claims are inflated real estate values. It took me only one trial to learn that appraisers say what they are paid to say.

…The case against the Trump organization, however, is not a criminal case. That is why he was not entitled to a jury. Nevertheless, although the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees us the right to jury trials only in criminal cases, the Eighth Amendment prohibits “excessive fines.” Several U.S. Supreme Court decisions have held that any fine designed as “punishment” instead of restitution is excessive. Many intermediate appellate and trial courts have ignored those decisions but some recent comments by members of the current Supremes have indicated they are going to stop the practice.

Therefore, because there were no damages incurred as a result of the alleged fraud, New York will be limited by the Eighth Amendment in their ability to fine the Trump Organization. Anything above court costs and some nominal fine would likely violate the Eighth Amendment.

In short, the New York case is clearly the persecution of a political opponent. If I was the judge I would have thrown out the state’s case immediately. But then again, I am not a judge in a communist state that values party loyalty over truth and justice.

Let’s see if the court acknowledges or abides by the Eighth Amendment. Please follow the link to read the Substack article. Attorney DuChemin definitely has a way with words.

Why The Deep State Might Welcome Governor Cuomo’s Downfall

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Yesterday American Greatness posted an article about the charges against New York’s Governor Cuomo. The article points out that the sexual harassment charges have taken the focus away from the nursing home deaths caused by putting people recovering from Covid into nursing homes. If those charges were looked into, other states and other Democrat governors would have been involved.

The article reports:

The people running our government and fronting Biden had a great day Tuesday. In one fell swoop, with New York Attorney General Letitia James’ case—not even charges, merely a case—against Governor Andrew Cuomo for prolific, ridiculous sexual harassment, they solved a great many of the Biden Administration’s looming problems: political, personnel, and criminal. Indeed, there was lots of winning for the shadowy cabal. 

Despite his pugnaciousness and tenacity, these harassment charges, most of which will not pass legal muster should trials ensue, are still likely to push Cuomo from office, whether by resignation or impeachment. As of this writing, a majority of Democratic state legislators have announced support for impeachment, with hearings to begin at the end of August. For Democrats, that beats the alternatives. 

The national outrage at Cuomo’s handsiness and bullying—from feminists, Democratic officials, and others who have ignored Joe and Hunter’s actual criminal sexual depravity—and the expiation of sin to follow as he leaves the scene, has made it unlikely that Cuomo will ever face justice for the deliberate murder of roughly 15,000 seniors in New York nursing homes. That is a far more serious charge. Were that case to be unraveled, with evidence, in a court of law or even in a real newspaper, many people besides Cuomo would be in deep trouble. Particularly hard hit would be those for whom he acted in pursuit of unseating Donald Trump in the coming election. So that could not be allowed to happen. 

The article reports:

Cuomo will resign —or the extremely left-wing state legislature will impeach him. The woke, increasingly black-centric New York Democratic Party wants Attorney General Letitia James, a total progressive, to be the gubernatorial nominee. And hey, we already have many black, female mayors running big cities with escalated mayhem and murder. Time for a governor. 

(If the New York state GOP can’t capitalize on this, their obscurity is deserved.)

As if he knew this was coming, Cuomo secured his post-term book deal early. He banked the $5 million payoff for a book no one bought, about “leadership” during the pandemic, written by employees on the public payroll.

Of course, back then—a year ago, in the anxious boredom of the first wave of lockdown—newly single, aging Andrew, 63, with his visible nipple rings, was a sexual icon. Male and female celebrities prattled stupidly on air about “Cuomosexuality” (wink, wink). What a great candidate for president, the narrative went. In retrospect, it’s ironic—nay, hilarious—that New York liberals raved about the sexuality of a powerful, wealthy man who just could not get laid, no matter whom he pursued.

All gone. Biden and the cabal have just cleared the stage of their most compelling competition in 2024. (That need was not anticipated back when everyone expected Biden to die early, so Kamala could take over. But Kamala is such a disaster that even they see she has to go.) 

Meanwhile, for a moment we all get to pretend we’re back in a normal world, where powerful older men harass younger women, in actual workplaces. We can summon gratifying high dudgeon in amusing arguments, without thinking about the needless deaths, trashed economy, censorship, China’s control of our political class, and the end of liberty. So, lots of winning. 

Right now, everything for the Democrats is about 2022 and 2024. They are scared to death that President Trump or Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will be the Republican candidate. As of now, the Democrat’s two best candidates (Governor Newsom and Governor Cuomo) are in serious trouble.

Can You Walk Back Up A Slippery Slope?

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According to Oxford Eagle:

Lavrentiy Beria, the most ruthless and longest-serving secret police chief in Joseph Stalin’s reign of terror in Russia and Eastern Europe, bragged that he could prove criminal conduct on anyone, even the innocent.

“Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime” was Beria’s infamous boast.

Unfortunately we are watching a version of that statement play out in America right now.

On May 18, The New York Post reported:

New York Attorney General Letitia James’ investigation of the Trump Organization is criminal in nature, her office revealed Tuesday.

James’ office had been conducting a civil investigation of former President Donald Trump’s company.

“We have informed the Trump Organization that our investigation into the organization is no longer purely civil in nature,” a spokesperson for the attorney general said in a statement.

…James has been investigating the Trump Organization since 2019 after Trump’s onetime personal attorney, Michael Cohen, testified to Congress that Trump exaggerated the value of his financial assets in order to help score more favorable terms on loans and insurance policies. Cohen is serving the remainder of a three-year prison sentence under federal house arrest after pleading guilty to tax evasion and campaign finance violations.

The thing to keep in mind here is that Attorney General James campaigned on a platform of promising to destroy President Trump. She was elected.

During the past five or six years, we have seen our justice system turned on its head.  There has been unlawful surveillance of American citizens–a violation of their civil rights, ridiculous jail terms for people who hold conservative values, early morning raids on people who posed no flight risk (complete with advance notice to CNN), etc. The people who want to spend their time looking for a crime to attribute to President Trump need to remember that the justice system that will look for a crime to fit a person could ultimately be turned on them.

The swamp in Washington is deep and wide and extends out into many blue states. If we don’t get it drained soon, I fear that the American most of us grew up in with equal justice under the law will be gone forever.