Sam Levine
... Career prosecutors in the US attorney’s office for the eastern district of Virginia had looked at accusations James committed mortgage fraud and concluded there was no probable cause to charge the case. Lindsey Halligan, Trump’s handpicked interim US attorney, nonetheless went ahead and presented the case to the grand jury. Her decision to do so reportedly caught top justice department officials off-guard.
The indictment handed down on Thursday charges James with bank fraud and making a false statement when she secured a mortgage to buy a second home in Norfolk, Virginia, in 2020. As part of the purchase, James signed a rider that indicated she would use it as her second home and prohibited her from renting it out, according to the indictment. James proceeded to then rent out the home, prosecutors allege. By lying on the mortgage statement, prosecutors say, James secured a better mortgage rate and a seller credit that saved her about $18,933 over the life of the loan.
“In this case, prosecutors will be required to show that at the moment James signed the mortgage paperwork, she was aware of the provision regarding a secondary home, that she intended to use it for some different purpose, and that she intended to obtain a financial benefit as a result of her deceit,” said Barbara McQuade, a former US attorney for the eastern district of Michigan. “That can be very difficult for a prosecutor to do because we cannot read other people’s minds. Anyone who has ever participated in a mortgage closing is familiar with the daunting pile of papers they put in front of you.”
The second-home rider James signed does not prohibit renting the home outright, Adam Levitin, a law professor at Georgetown University, wrote in a blogpost. Instead, the rider prevents the owner from giving control over rental decisions to someone else. The agreement also only imposes the restriction starting one year after the agreement. The indictment made public on Thursday does not say when James rented the home or for how long ...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/10/letitia-james-mortgage-fraud
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