Tag: fraud

Biden Judge Gives Letitia James Her First Win

A Biden-appointed judge gave Letitia James her first win on Friday.

Corrupt New York Attorney General Letitia James was arraigned in court in Norfolk, Virginia, on Friday morning.

Letitia James’ federal criminal case was assigned to US District Judge Jamar Walker, a Biden appointee.

Jamar Walker was appointed by Joe Biden in 2023.

James was indicted by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia earlier this month.

According to the DOJ, Letitia James was charged with two crimes: Bank Fraud under 18 U.S.C. Section 1344 and False Statements to a Financial Institution under 18 U.S.C. Section 1014.

The charges are related to a mortgage loan on a property James owns in Norfolk, Virginia, referred to as “the Perrone Property.”

According to the indictment, James was to 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.

Letitia James treated her Perrone property like an investment property on her Schedule E form and paid taxes on the rental income, further contradicting her claims of secondary residence.

“If convicted, Letitia James faces penalties including up to 30 years in prison per count, up to a $1 million fine on each count, and forfeiture,” the DOJ said.

On Friday Letitia James filed a motion to dismiss the federal indictment arguing that US Attorney Lindsey Halligan’s appointment as interim US Attorney is in violation of the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution.

“Attorney General Letitia A. James, by and through undersigned counsel, pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 12(b) moves this Court to dismiss the Government’s indictment because purported interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan had no authority to bring the charges in this case. As explained further below, Ms. Halligan’s purported appointment as interim U.S. Attorney was invalid under 28 U.S.C § 546 and in violation of the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution,” James’s attorney argued in a motion reviewed by The Gateway Pundit.

James also asked Judge Jamar Walker to consolidate her motion challenging the appointment of Halligan with James Comey’s motion in a separate case.

Recall that fired FBI Director James Comey also filed a motion to disqualify Lindsey Halligan after he was indicted by a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia.

On Tuesday, the Chief Judge of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Comey’s motion challenging Halligan to be transferred to Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, a Clinton appointee.

On Friday, Judge Jamar Walker granted Letitia James’ request to consolidate her motion with Comey’s similar motion so the Clinton judge can decide whether Lindsey Halligan will be disqualified in both cases.

The fix is in.

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Deep State Prosecutors in Maryland Claim DOJ Doesn’t Have Strong Enough Case to Charge Adam Schiff with Mortgage Fraud in Latest Leak to Media – Todd Blanche Responds!

Deep State prosecutors in Maryland are defending Adam Schiff amid an investigation into his mortgage fraud.

Democrat Senator Adam Schiff (CA) is under investigation for mortgage fraud, specifically occupancy fraud.

The Gateway Pundit’s Joe Hoft was first to report on Schiff’s mortgage fraud back in April 2023.

Fox News’ Laura Ingraham over the summer exclusively reported that the US Attorney’s Office in Maryland is investigating Schiff for possible charges involving mortgage fraud.

In 2000 Schiff was elected to Congress and has served as a US House member from the state of California ever since. Schiff reportedly purchased a home in Maryland with his wife in 2003 stating they would occupy this home for 12 consecutive months as their “primary residence”. Despite this claim, Schiff continued to vote in California.

Schiff refinanced his home in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2013 claiming the Maryland home was his primary residence. In 2009, a House Ethics investigation claimed that Schiff did this and Schiff claimed it was an error and he repaid the exempt taxes to the state of Maryland.

Maryland prosecutors are now defending Schiff by anonymously leaking to the media and claiming that there is no evidence to charge the Democrat Senator with crimes.

Over the summer, President Trump called for Adam Schiff to be prosecuted and dropped receipts on the Democrat Senator’s mortgage fraud.

“Adam Schiff is a THIEF! He should be prosecuted, just like they tried to prosecute me, and everyone else — The only difference is, WE WERE TOTALLY INNOCENT, IT WAS ALL A GIANT HOAX!” President Trump said on Truth Social.

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RFK Jr. Gave Ed Martin a List of 28 Scientific Studies that Defrauded the American Public – The Scientific Journals Have Been Put on Notice

On Wednesday morning James Lyons-Weiler joined Steve Bannon on The War Room to discuss the “weaponization of science” and its destructive effects on the American people.

James Lyons-Weiler is an American scientist and activist who operates the non-profit organization Institute for Pure and Applied Knoledge. Lyons-Weiler holds a PhD in ecology and evolutionary biology.

Lyons-Weiler explained the epidemic of fraud in today’s scientific community.

James Lyons-Weilor: I know for a fact that if there’s a narrative that the former CDC or NIAID with Anthony Fauci had to have for public health. If you’re at a university and you actually went against the green, your university got a call and all of your NIH funding was threatened over, let’s say, HPV vaccine safety or MMR vaccine safety… There’s a mix of fraud in weaponized science and then use of science in a way that is just fooling the public, right?

Steve Bannon: Can you give me a specific example of either fraud or weaponization in this regards?

James Lyons-Weilor: Yeah, absolutely. So when the CDC whistleblower, who I’m sure you’ve heard about, William Thompson came out. He told Brian Hooker that a study that was published in 2004 by Frank DeStefano and a lot of people at the CDC actually buried data so the institutes of medicine could look at it, that the MMR vaccine did indeed seem to contribute to an increased risk of autism in African-American boys. And they manipulated the study by dropping everybody from the study that didn’t have a Georgia birth certificate just to reduce the sample size, which is the number of people in the study. So the statistics couldn’t pick it up. And that’s fraud. So the demarcation between science and fraud is something that’s been going on for decades, over 100 years…

…Coleen Boyle, Frank DeStefano, others. They were absolutely hired to go to work at CDC because they knew how to fix the science, the data, the fraud.

Lyons-Weilor says we are likely going to see prosecutions over the science fraud.

James Lyons-Weilor: I think that we’re going to probably see some prosecutions on the basis of defrauding the federal government. If I’m funded by the federal government to do science, to do research, and I falsify the data, I can be fined personally, and I can be banned from doing research for 10 years…

…Ed Martin. He was at the Association of Physicians and Surgeons meeting last month. I was there Yes. And he made an announcement that Mr. Kennedy, Secretary Kennedy, gave him a list of 28 studies with the journals and layperson’s summaries that actually they were wrongfully retracted and that those journals have been put on notice by the attorney general’s office. And I was asked by Secretary Kennedy to put that list together for him.

Lyons Weilor ended the interview suggesting that there is a government investigation into the individuals who scammed the American public and lied to them about the dangers of particular vaccines.

These deceitful officials may finally face justice for the dangerous policies they pushed on the American public.

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How Letitia James’s Fake Marriage to Her Dad Sparked a Lifetime of Mortgage Fraud

How did Letitia James’s claim that she married her father in order to qualify for her first loan evolve into a lifetime of mortgage and bank fraud?

It all began in the spring of 1983, when a 24-year-old Letitia James and her father, Robert James, posing as “husband and wife,” took out a real-estate loan for $30,300 from Kadilac Funding Ltd. for the purchase of a two-story townhome in Queens. The loan document, signed by both, listed “ROBERT JAMES AND LETITIA JAMES, HIS WIFE” in three separate places. This was no clerical error.

At that time, young Letitia likely lacked sufficient income or credit to qualify for a mortgage as a single woman. The fraudulent claim of marriage to her father allowed her to obtain financing she otherwise couldn’t have, an act that meets the legal definition of mortgage fraud under state and federal statutes.

This deception set a precedent for her. Once Letitia discovered that falsifying personal information could deliver tangible financial rewards without consequence, the act of misrepresentation for loans became a lifelong habit.

Decades of mortgage misrepresentations followed. Even after she became the high-profile Attorney General of New York state on January 1, 2019, James continued the same behavior pattern.

In 2020, James purchased a property at 3121 Perone Avenue in Norfolk, Virginia, signing a document claiming it would be her primary or secondary residence, rather than a rental property, to secure a lower interest rate. That misrepresentation recently became part of the criminal indictment against her for mortgage and bank fraud, carrying a potential 30-year prison sentence.

In 2021, James applied for a $200,000 line of credit mortgage from Citizen’s Bank on her 5-unit apartment building in Brooklyn, but in mortgage documents James claimed it only had one apartment unit. Accordingly, James received a lower residential mortgage interest rate she was not entitled to, and avoided a higher commercial loan rate and much higher closing costs.

In 2023, James bought a home at 604 Sterling Avenue in Norfolk, Virginia. Per Sam Antar, Letitia qualified for the loan only after certifying in an updated application that it would be her “primary residence”, even though she lived in Brooklyn.

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2 LA men charged with fraud in misuse of public funds meant for combating homelessness

Two Los Angeles-area men faced federal charges in separate criminal cases as they are both accused of fraudulently acquiring public funds that were allocated to address homelessness and build affordable housing, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Thursday.

Cody Holmes of Beverly Hills was in custody as of Thursday after he allegedly used fake bank records to receive nearly $26 million from the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) for Shangri-La Industries LLC, for which he previously served as a CFO.

The money from Project Homekey was supposed to be used to build affordable housing in Thousand Oaks, but instead, Holmes, 31, spent the money to pay credit card bills and purchase good at luxury retailers, the DOJ alleged.

“Even though the developer received all the money from the state, the developer did not complete the construction of the Thousand Oaks project,” Acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said during a news conference Thursday. “Essentially, he stole the money.”

In a separate case, Steven Taylor, a developer and real state agent, of Brentwood was released on a $3.6 million bond, the DOJ said, after he was charged with bank fraud, identity theft and money laundering.

Federal investigators said Taylor also used fake bank records to obtain loans and lines of credit. The 44-year-old is accused of using the fraudulently obtained funds to flip a Cheviot Hills home and selling it to a homeless housing developer for more than double his original purchase.

“Taylor had contracted to sell the property, which he acquired for only $11 million, fraudulently, to Weingart, a homeless housing developer, that purchased the property for a whopping $27 million in a transaction that was hidden from the victim lender and others,” Essayli added.

Akil Davis, FBI’s assistant director in charge of the Los Angeles Field Office. said Taylor also tried to enrich his business in high-end neighborhoods of Los Angeles.

“Taylor’s actions not only misled banks, but also took advantage of the city and state’s efforts to combat the homelessness crisis, Davis said.

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Letitia James’ ‘fugitive’ relative who lives in her Virginia home was arrested twice for assaulting cops: docs

New York’s top law enforcer is housing a cop-hating fugitive relative with a lengthy felony rap sheet — who was twice arrested for assaulting police officers — at one of her Virginia homes, according to court documents.

State Attorney General Letitia James’ grandniece, Nakia Thompson, 36, is wanted for “absconding” from North Carolina after failing to complete the terms of her parole following a 2011 arrest in Winston-Salem, authorities said.

In that case, she was charged with malicious conduct by a prisoner, a felony, along with assault of a government official and resisting a public officer, court records show.

But Thompson has also been repeatedly arrested and cited in Virginia, since moving there — with charges including possession of burglary tools, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and grand larceny.

Since 2020, Thompson has been living at a house owned by James in Norfolk, which is now at the center of a criminal indictment against the AG.

That same year, Thompson was given two years’ probation and ordered to pay $2,020 in fees after she pleaded guilty to petit and grand larceny charges — both felonies, according to court records.

She also had a handful of misdemeanor charges dropped, as well as the felony burglary tools possession charge. 

She has also racked up nine separate vehicle offenses, including as recently as this summer.

In July, Thompson was hit with four citations in a single day, including driving 80 mph in a 55 zone and stopping her vehicle improperly on a highway.

The year before she was once again ticketed for going 80 in a 55, and got a summons for improper child restraint, for which she was later found guilty in absentia and fined $50.

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Rules for Thee, Fraud for Me: Letitia James Prosecuted Mortgage Fraud Case Mirroring the Charges Against Her

Attorney General Letitia James, the architect of New York state’s mortgage-fraud crackdowns, now finds herself in the position of her former defendants, accused of exploiting the very system she once claimed to defend. The hypocrisy is undeniable.

Any attempt by Letitia James to claim ignorance of the law as a defense in her mortgage fraud indictment is all but gone.

In June 2019, New York Attorney General Letitia James stood before the cameras to hail a conviction she called a triumph against mortgage fraud.

The case involved a $1.3 million scheme by Brooklyn couple John F. Iacono and Shpresa Gjekovic, whom James accused of “a deliberate scheme to enrich themselves at the expense of hardworking New Yorkers.”

At the time, she declared the prosecution was proof that “no one is above the law”.

But today, now under indictment for mortgage fraud herself, that speech reads less like a moment of triumph and more like an act of projection.

The accompanying quote from Attorney General James remains striking for its tone of moral absolutism.

“Iacono and Gjekovic falsified document after document in order to pad their own pockets,” James said. “Let this serve as a warning to all of those who try to carry out such deliberate schemes: There is no place in this state for individuals who try to cash in at the expense of hardworking New Yorkers.”

Those words, “no place in this state,” once echoed across newsrooms as the declaration of a moral crusader.

Her CUFFS Initiative (Combatting Upstate Financial Frauds and Schemes) was marketed as a model for restoring faith in financial integrity, pairing state police with prosecutors to “expose deceitful plots” and reinforce public trust.

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This is the mortgage document New York AG Letitia James signed that has her facing 60 years in prison

A one-page mortgage document signed by New York state Attorney General Letitia James is at the center of the federal criminal charges for which she now faces 60 years in federal prison.

In the “second home rider” for her mortgage, which was obtained by The Post, James attested that the property would be a second home occupied primarily by her.

It allowed her to secure a better mortgage rate from Old Virginia Mortgage/Annie Mac — netting her nearly $19,000 in mortgage savings, according to federal prosecutors.

In reality, James’ serial criminal grandniece, Nakia Thompson, moved in soon after she closed on the house, according to the New York Times.

Much of the strength of the case — which alleges James committed federal bank fraud and made misstatements to a financial institution — could rest on whether Thompson was paying rent.

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Top immigration official warns naturalization fraudsters could be stripped of citizenship

After a joint operation by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) found “mass patterns” of marriage and other immigration fraud in Minneapolis, the agency’s director says denaturalization and prosecutions are on the table. 

Operation Twin Shield, which was conducted by USCIS in coordination with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the FBI in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, flagged over 1,000 cases suspected of involving “fraud or ineligibility indicators,” the agency shared in an after-action announcement. 

The agency reviewed applications for immigration benefits, including marriage and family-based petitions, employment authorizations, and certain parole-related requests, the agency said. Of the cases reviewed, the agency found “evidence of fraud, non-compliance, or public safety or national security concerns” in 275 cases.

Widespread fraud in immigration landscape

“So we went, and our plan was to start getting some resources together to go after marriage fraud. What we did over the course of about two weeks—it was a joint operation with us and ICE, CBP, DEA, FBI, all were involved—we were able to find mass patterns of not only marriage fraud, naturalization fraud, we found fraud within the OPT, the optional practical training process, [and] we found it within H-1Bs,” USCIS Director Joseph Edlow told the “Just the News, No Noise“ TV show. 

“Now we’re taking all that information back. We’re going through it, seeing what applications need to be reopened, what benefits need to be denied. And I’m working with the US Attorney out there to start sending a couple cases for prosecution, hopefully, many cases for prosecution,” Edlow added. 

The director said that a denaturalization process is possible for certain cases if they meet the criteria. 

“[We] do have processes both for civil and criminal denaturalization. It’s something that’s on the books, so we can do it. There are some criteria that have to be met in terms of what was the fraud? Was the fraud part of their scheme to ultimately get naturalization? Was it committed before or after they got naturalization? So there’s a lot of different factors that play a role here,” said Edlow. 

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Paper Chase: A Global Industry Fuels Scientific Fraud in the U.S.

In southern India, a new enterprise called Peer Publicon Consultancy offers a full suite of services to scientific researchers. It will not only write a scholarly paper for a fee but also guarantee publishing the fraudulent work in a respected journal.   

It is one of many “paper mills” that have emerged across Asia and Eastern Europe over the last two decades. Paper mills are having remarkable success peddling tens of thousands of bogus academic journal papers and authorships to university and medical researchers seeking to pad their resumes in highly competitive fields. 

These sophisticated outfits also engage in trickery to get papers published, infiltrating journals with their own editors and reviewers and even resorting to bribery, according to investigators and a white paper from Wiley, a New Jersey-based publisher. The scale of the fraud is eye-popping: One Wiley subsidiary, Hindawi, retracted more than 8,000 articles two years ago for suspected paper mill involvement. 

U.S. universities and regulators have been able to brush off the threat of paper mills because they have mostly sold their services in China, where research integrity standards are rarely enforced, according to experts. But these rogue operators are building on their success in Asia and expanding to the U.S. and Western Europe, where the prize is the prestige of naming an author on an article from a famous university. 

“Paper mills have become a huge business,” said Jennifer Byrne, professor of molecular oncology at the University of Sydney, who studies the enterprises. “If some journals are pushing back on papers from China, and they probably are, it makes sense that paper mills will try to diversify their clientele and start working with people in different countries.” 

 As paper mills expand from the fringe to the center of research, placing professional-looking articles in high-impact journals owned by major publishers like Springer Nature, experts worry about the potential harm to scientific discovery. Researchers willing to break the rules in a Darwinian world of ‘publish or perish’ may mislead other scientists who incorporate their false findings into their own work. “We know little about the actual impact of paper mills on research,” Byrne says. “But if scientists are building on bad information, they are wasting resources and not making progress in their fields.”

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