NORFOLK, VA — New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) is scheduled to appear Friday morning in a Virginia federal courtroom for her arraignment on mortgage fraud charges.
James, 67, will be arraigned at 11 a.m. EST at the Walter E. Hoffman U.S. Courthouse in Norfolk, where she will enter a plea to a two-count indictment accusing her of bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution. She is expected to plead not guilty.
A federal grand jury indicted James on Oct. 9, alleging that she falsely claimed she would personally occupy a Norfolk home she purchased in August 2020 with a $109,600 mortgage loan. Prosecutors contend the property was instead used as a rental investment home occupied by her grandniece’s family, including a relative currently wanted on outstanding warrants in North Carolina.
The alleged misrepresentation saved James nearly $19,000 over the life of the loan, according to the indictment. The attorney general listed the property as an investment in her state ethics disclosures until May of this year, one month after federal housing officials referred her to the Justice Department for potential fraud.
The case is being prosecuted by U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, the interim head of the Eastern District of Virginia and former personal attorney to President Donald Trump, and is being led by Roger Keller, a Missouri-based prosecutor detailed to assist in the Norfolk office’s public corruption and financial crime docket, according to the court docket.
In announcing the charges earlier this month, Halligan said the indictment reflects “intentional, criminal acts and tremendous breaches of the public’s trust.”
James has called the prosecution politically motivated, accusing the Trump administration of “weaponizing” federal law enforcement in retaliation for her prior civil case against the former president. “These charges are baseless,” she said in a statement, adding that “the president’s actions are a grave violation of our Constitutional order.”
James is represented by Abbe Lowell, a prominent Washington attorney who currently represents former national security adviser John Bolton in his criminal classified documents case. He previously served as counsel to Hunter Biden in his gun and tax criminal cases.
If convicted, James faces up to 30 years in prison and a fine of $1 million, though sentencing guidelines would likely recommend a lesser penalty for a first-time offender.
The James indictment came just one day after former FBI Director James Comey was arraigned in the same district on charges of lying to Congress and obstructing an investigation.
Comey’s case is being handled by two North Carolina-based federal prosecutors, amid reports that the Eastern District’s office encountered resistance from some prosecutors when seeking charges for both defendants. Prior to Comey’s indictment, then-U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert resigned under pressure and was replaced by Halligan, who proceeded to file the charges against Comey days before the statute of limitations ran out on his alleged offenses.
In court filings on Thursday, a notice in Comey’s case indicated an out-of-district judge will hold a hearing on Nov. 13 to weigh Comey’s challenge to Halligan’s appointment, as he has maintained she was improperly installed into the office. James, on Thursday, indicated she plans to make the same move as early as Friday.
“In the interest of efficiency and to avoid any unnecessary delay, particularly if this Court must designate this motion to an out-of-district judge, Attorney General James files the instant Notice to formally alert the Court,” a filing on her criminal court docket reads.
Separately on Thursday, the liberal watchdog group American Oversight announced it had launched an investigation into Halligan’s use of the encrypted messaging app Signal to communicate with a journalist about the James case.
Earlier this week, Lawfare reporter Anna Bower published a transcript of her Signal exchange with Halligan, noting that the prosecutor had enabled an auto-delete feature to erase messages after eight hours.
“The story about U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan’s use of Signal is deeply troubling,” said Chioma Chukwu, executive director of American Oversight, a liberal watchdog group. “That she used the app apparently to discuss government business with a reporter, and configured her messages to disappear after eight hours, raises serious concerns that she is actively violating the Federal Records Act and the Justice Department’s own records-retention rules.”
American Oversight said Thursday it had submitted a public records request to obtain Halligan’s Signal communications. In a separate court filing Thursday, James’s counsel also requested the federal court issue an order requiring the government to follow the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure by barring the government from making extrajudicial statements, citing the Signal texts.
LEAKED SIGNAL TEXTS FROM LETITIA JAMES PROSECUTOR DON’T VIOLATE ETHICS RULES, EXPERTS SAY
However, former federal prosecutors told the Washington Examiner that the content of Halligan’s texts, as published by Lawfare, did not appear to violate ethical obligations, though her use of disappearing messages could draw further scrutiny amid the public records request.
Friday’s proceeding will mark the first time a sitting New York attorney general has faced federal criminal charges. James’s courtroom appearance is expected to draw national attention, given her past prominence in pursuing high-profile civil and criminal cases, including a $500 million civil fraud case she brought against Trump in the fall of 2022.