Joel Gilbert exposes New York AG Letitia James’ alleged mortgage fraud—$509K loans on $187K properties, misrepresented occupancy (2011 HAMP case), and a 13-year estate delay—while her lawyer Abby Lowell denies wrongdoing despite legal documents. Federal charges (18 U.S.C. 1014) and NY Public Officers Law violations loom as Gilbert ties her to Virginia property fraud, private jet misuse ($41K taxpayer-funded), and potential indictment. Meanwhile, his documentary RoseanneIsAmerica defends Barr against cancel culture attacks, screening June 9, before pivoting back to rural hospitals facing congressional funding threats. [Automatically generated summary]
Rural Americans deserve access to the best of what our country has to offer, especially health care.
Across every state, every community, America's rural hospitals are the first line of defense protecting our families, neighbors, and loved ones.
No matter where you live, hospital care doesn't clock out.
They're there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
Each year, America's over 5,000 hospitals care for millions of patients, providing 24-7 emergency care, delivering babies, cancer treatments, and other life-saving care that patients rely on.
Behind every one of those patients are doctors, nurses, and caregivers working tirelessly to keep people healthy and safe.
Hospitals are our community's lifelines.
They employ our neighbors and keep our families healthy.
But now, some in Congress are threatening access to care.
Tell Congress, protect patient care to keep America strong.
Don't cut rural health care.
Welcome back.
We are back in the Stone Zone.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency of the U.S. government has sent a criminal referral to the Department of Justice regarding serial mortgage fraud by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Remember her.
She's the one who said no one is above the law.
Well, evidently that applies to her as well.
In a multi-page complaint to the Department of Justice, the head of the FHFA outlined a series of serious mortgage fraud crimes.
These are largely based on the work of two investigators, Joel Gilbert, an investigative journalist and film producer, documentary film producer who joins us today, and Sam Antar, who writes the lively whitecollarfraud.com site.
And they have documented, both of them, all of their findings.
Joel Gilbert has produced a number of documentary feature films.
He has a new one out regarding my good friend Roseanne Barr.
We're going to ask him about that as well.
But Joel Gilbert, welcome into the Stone Zone.
Okay, thanks, Roger.
Great to be back.
So the Gateway Pundit, where you have published 50 days of your Letitia files, in my view, have helped restore justice in this country.
She, of course, denies any wrongdoing.
She hired the lawyer Abby Lowell, who last represented Hunter Biden none too successfully to deny everything.
But the documents themselves don't lie.
You have done a yeoman's job of exposing a number of the major scandals here.
I believe it was you, Joel, who first discovered that James had received back in 2011 a federally subsidized HAMP mortgage modification that required the property that you were getting a mortgage for to be no more than four residential units.
Now, the official certificate of occupancy showed that the property in question had five, and then Sam Antar's investigation revealed critical last-minute handwritten notations in the mortgage document, including the words, quote,
for fam in one corner and a contradictory note saying, quote, not more than six residential units, suggesting a deliberate manipulation to maintain technical eligibility while creating plausible deniability about the property's true status.
If I did this, they would charge me.
Tell me what you have discovered in your latest piece, because there's a new Letitia James scandal brewing here.
Correct.
In addition to the Hamp loan investigation, the one regarding the Northfook property in Virginia, where she claimed to the lender that she would be a primary, it would be her primary residence in order to get lower mortgage rates.
I've taken a look at her estate filing in 1999.
Her father died in 1986, Robert James.
And that was three years after Letitia purchased a home with him, pretending to be his wife.
They purchased a home in Queens, a small townhouse, and they applied for the mortgage as husband and wife.
Now, I've written previously about how that was likely done because Letitia, 24 years old at the time, probably could not qualify for a loan and didn't have the income to do that.
So that was in itself a form of mortgage fraud.
You cannot misrepresent a relationship in order to get a mortgage.
Now, her father dies in 1986.
For some strange reason, I talk about this in my article today.
It's very, very rare that a estate proceeding doesn't happen within a year or two of someone's death.
But Letitia James waited 13 years, which is unheard of.
I cite the fact that she didn't file any tax filings about her father's estate and that she asked the court to give her her father's interest in the townhome because she said that she could not inherit it unless the court gave her the tenancy and common rights.
Now, really, she did have a joint tenancy because she applied for the mortgage as her father's wife.
So she gets this grant from the probate court to give her, 13 years later, her father's interest in the townhome.
Lo and behold, one year later in 2000, she sells the property as husband and wife, that Robert James is her husband, even though he's deceased and even though she inherited it.
So I looked at these discrepancies in this estate, and I said there's all kinds of problems here.
There's the delay, there's selling it as a husband and wife when you inherited it, the lack of any tax filings.
And I'm saying that this 13-year difference and Letitia James' mishandling of her father's estate is kind of a bridge that shows how she was treating the law and treating her responsibilities as an attorney.
And I believe she should be looked at.
And the background of this, you might remember in 2016, Hillary Clinton introduced the term fake news into the 2016 campaign.
And Donald Trump quickly took over that line and used it against the left.
I think the breathtaking hypocrisy is what's driving this interest because when Letitia James introduced the idea no one is above the law, she's the one that apparently has behaved as though she's been above the law in all of her real estate transactions for 40 years.
As I recall, the actual title on that property correctly records it as belonging to father and daughter, while the mortgage records the mortgage having been given to father, husband, and wife.
Perfect example of fraud.
If all three mortgages are considered, James is claiming $509,600 in mortgage debt on one Virginia property assessed at just $187,300, a loan-to-value ratio of 272%, far beyond any rational underwriting standard and likely impossible to obtain through legitimate lending channels.
Now, Letitia claims two Fridays ago, I think it was, that when you and Sam Antar at whitecollarfraud.com visited her apartment building to confirm the number of units there and that she had, in fact, committed fraud.
She said that you had been sent by Donald Trump.
That's laughable.
Sam Antar's not a Trump supporter.
He's a Democrat, and his investigations are not politically based.
And you weren't sent by Donald Trump, but you were there to videotape documentation of what you were saying.
She claimed that she was at church when this happened.
Do you think she was really at church?
Well, no, because Sam and I were there on a Friday afternoon.
So we saw that Letitia went to the, you know, Al Sharpton's National Action Network, which is very typical, I've noticed, going way back to Bill Clinton when he was busted for the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
He showed up at these black churches trying to cloak himself in this air of righteousness of people who are struggling for civil rights somehow that are being persecuted.
So Letitia, I'm seeing, is following that same formula.
She went to go to speak to the black community with these false claims that she was in church on a Friday afternoon and that somehow she's being persecuted.
So she's getting more and more desperate.
She hired this Democrat fixer attorney, Abby Lowell, who put out a letter to Pam Bondi, which was just a PR stunt.
It had no legal substance whatsoever.
He completely misstated the documents.
He misunderstood the documents.
And I think she's in big trouble.
And the reason I went to her house is because of what she said.
No one is above the law.
And that's what Sam and I checked it out, and we confirmed our research that all of her real estate filings were fraudulent.
Public record because of the required disclosures that she must make as an elected official under New York state law.
To me, the August 2023 act of signing a specific power of attorney in connection with the mortgage on a property in Norfolk, Virginia, claiming that it would be her, quote, principal residence, that was a legally binding statement that I think automatically vacated her position as New York Attorney General under Public Officers Law 30.
This declaration came just 45 days before she launched her landmark civil fraud case against Donald Trump.
It also potentially constitutes mortgage fraud under 18 U.S.C. 1014, which criminalizes false statements made to obtain a loan.
This is a material problem for a couple of reasons.
If she did move to Virginia, which of course she didn't, she's therefore ineligible to be Attorney General.
And if she signed it and didn't move, she's clearly guilty of mortgage fraud.
Her excuse, I should say her answer, both herself and by her lawyer, Abby Lowell, was that she had filed an additional application in which she was not required to live in the property to obtain the mortgage.
There's no record of that.
The New York Times wrote it as a fact without producing any such document.
And these power of attorneys are signed at the conclusion of the mortgage transaction, not at the beginning.
It looks to me that she is trying to lie her way out of this.
Yeah, I can comment on that.
What her attorney, Abby Lowell, said, this is Hunter Biden's attorney and Bob Menendez, Gold Bar Bob's attorney who's going to jail.
But what he did in his response that he made public to Pam Bondi, he said there's a couple of informal emails that Letitia sent where she said it would not be her primary residence.
But that in no way negates the fact that in the mortgage document that the lender relied on to come up with their rates, that that's the document they relied on to approve her mortgage.
And he ignores that.
The same thing with her apartment building in Brooklyn that I visited with Sam Antar.
It's a four-story building with five units legally according to the certificate of occupancy.
Sam and I measured the lower floor because she falsely claimed that it was only three stories.
The lower floor, if it's 50% above ground, that's a floor.
It's 87 inches above ground and only 16 inches below ground.
So it's a four-story house with five apartment units.
Now, in his letter, he said, oh, Letitia has informally been using this building as a four-unit building for some years.
It doesn't matter how you claim that you informally use it.
It matters what the certificate of occupancy says, and that's the legal definition of that building.
So in both cases, her attorney is simply saying there are informal things that were done that mitigate what she did illegally, and I don't think it's going to fly.
At Manhattan University, a graduate degree is not out of reach.
You'll gain real-world skills, credentials, employers' value, and connections to New York City's top companies.
Choose from their new master of science degrees in healthcare, informatics, digital marketing, and analytics, business analytics, or financial analytics.
All built around hands-on learning and industry partnerships.
Graduate ready to lead, not just work.
Take the next step at manhattan.edu slash graduate.
Manhattan University.
Lead the future.
I just want to state for the record, everyone is, of course, innocent until proven guilty.
There's a standing invitation to the Attorney General to appear here in the Stowe Zone to defend herself.
We would welcome that.
Somehow, I don't think she'll take us up on it, but the invitation is open.
Now, there are reports that federal prosecutors have impaneled a grand jury in Virginia to look at the charges in that state.
There's another Virginia property questionnaire.
Is there not?
Yeah, I looked at this foreclosure.
Apparently, she has some cousins.
The last name is Finney, in Martinsville, Virginia, that had their property foreclosed on by Wells Fargo.
So they recruited Letitia, apparently, who had some money, to buy back their foreclosed home from Wells Fargo Bank.
So sure enough, in 2008, Letitia buys this foreclosure from the bank.
And three weeks later is when the deed is then issued.
And when the deed was issued, Letitia's name was not on the deed, and that's not legal.
If she was a purchaser of the property, she should have showed up as someone on the deed, and then she would have had to sell the property to her cousins in some manner.
Taxpayers on the Hook?00:05:31
There's no record of her ever even selling the property.
There's no Record of her reporting this real estate acquisition or this real estate holding on her campaign finance forms.
She may still own that property.
So that's a big hole in reporting.
And why she bought this property for her cousins but never appeared on the deed is definitely a type of mortgage infraction that has to also be looked at.
For anyone who thinks that we are nitpicking here, let me remind you that Letitia James indicted President Donald Trump in a civil action claiming that he inflated the value of his assets in order to obtain commercial real estate loans, loans that were paid back in full and on time, in which the lenders made $40 million in interest.
In every one of those cases, the lenders testified that they had conducted their own due diligence as to the value of Trump's assets.
That no bank, no lender would take the borrower's word for the value of their assets.
They would be required, actually, to do their own due diligence to come up with a defensible number on which they felt comfortable making the loan.
Letitia James says this is retribution, it's revenge, because she won a, I think it's a $580 million judgment.
Let me give you a hint.
I believe that that judgment will be overturned.
The appeals court has already hinted about it, and we will see this for what it is.
A lawfare, politically motivated lawfare designed to hurt Donald Trump and impoverish him going into the presidential election.
Joel Gilbert is joining us today in the Stone Zone.
He is the investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker based in Los Angeles who's published a multi-part series for the Gateway Pundit on Letitia James.
When we come back, we're going to talk a little bit more about this, but I also want to talk to him about his upcoming documentary film regarding a very good friend of mine, Roseanne Barr.
Whatever you do, please don't touch that dial.
You're in the Stone Zone, and we'll be back with more politics, more news, more of Joel Gilbert on the other side.
We are back in the Stone Zone, and we're talking to Joel Gilbert, documentary filmmaker and investigative journalist, about his latest story, a Gateway Pundit, regarding New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Now we get news that New York taxpayers may not be aware that, well, they're going to be on the hook for Letitia James' legal bills.
Kathy Okel and Albany Democrats have passed a law that requires us, the taxpayers, to foot the bill for what I think are personal actions on her part.
She is not charged for misconduct as New York Attorney General, although there are some issues regarding her personal expenses and travel that could lead to such charges.
But in this case, all of the transactions that we're talking about here are personal financial transactions.
Joel, should the taxpayers foot the bill for this?
This has caused a lot of outrage because Letitia James apparently got governor to put in the new budget that if anything has to do with Trump, that the state would cover her legal expenses.
Now, people are outraged because the issues we've brought up have nothing to do with and were prior to her even becoming Attorney General for the most part, except for one issue.
So it's absurd.
I think people are outraged.
And Letitia James is being held up to the same standard that she established for Donald Trump, which is no one is above the law and the state of New York should not have to pay her legal fees.
Yeah, it was amazing.
Sam Antar uncovered the fact that between 2020 and 2021, the Attorney General's office spent $41,000 in taxpayer funds on private jet travel through a company called Venture Jets, a vendor used by no other state agency.
Several flights coincide with James' campaign activities, including a trip to Martha's Vineyard and politically significant conference in Puerto Rico, where she was described as being fully in campaign mode.
But then, according to Antar, there's nothing in state files to back up these expenditures.
In other words, there's no trip itinerary.
There's no explanation of who flew and why.
This kind of luxury campaign spending with creative accounting, I think, violates state law and could yet be a problem for the Attorney General.
Joel, when this is all over, is it your intention to make a documentary on Letitia James?
Well, I really could because it's a pattern of 40 years.
It's not like, oh, well, there's some expenses we're worried about on this airplane.
It's a pattern.
Every real estate transaction she does, every loan she takes, every interaction with relatives, the estate, with her niece, her cousins in Virginia, whatever she does, she appears to be crooked.
So this would make a great film, but we don't know the ending yet.
So I think I'm going to wait for the ending, and I'm thinking she'll probably be indicted based on what the evidence I've uncovered.
Joel, you have a very lively feed on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Protect Patient Care00:02:25
Where can people find you?
Joel S., for Sam, Joel S. Gilbert at Joel S. Gilbert.
I put up all my latest articles on Gateway Pundit there almost every day.
I urge folks to check it out.
Okay, we have about just one minute left.
Your upcoming documentary on one of my all-time favorites, Roseanne Barr is America.
Tell us quickly about it.
Yeah, RoseanneIsAmerica.com.
RoseanneIsAmerica.com.
Watch the trailer.
It's coming out on 72 million homes, video on demand, another several million on live stream.
We're screening it at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on June 9th.
Roseanne's going to be there.
Everyone's invited if you're in D.C., going to do a big QA.
And Roseanne is a very important figure in America.
This really tells her whole life story, including how she got essentially canceled for being a Trump supporter when they tried to say that she made a tweet that was racist, even though it wasn't, because they were out to get Trump.
So she was kind of the first victim of cancel culture where they cancel you for being a Trump supporter.
And this film tells the whole real story about her life, how she became a Trump supporter, and what really happened and why they tried to get her out of Hollywood.
All right.
We have to lend it there.
Let me thank my guest, Joel Gilbert, documentary filmmaker and investigative journalist.
And I look forward to your Roseanne film, Roseanne is America, because, well, I love Roseanne Barr.
Thank you for joining us today in the Stone Zone.
And until we meet again, God bless you and Godspeed.
Rural Americans deserve access to the best our nation has to offer, especially when it comes to health care.
Across every state and every community, America's rural hospitals are the first line of defense, protecting our families, neighbors, and loved ones.
No matter where you live, hospital care doesn't clock out.
They're there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
Each year, America's over 5,000 hospitals care for millions of patients, providing 24-7 emergency care, delivering babies, cancer treatments, and other life-saving care that patients rely on.
Behind every one of those patients are doctors, nurses, and caregivers working tirelessly to keep people healthy and safe.
Hospitals are our community's lifelines.
They employ our neighbors and keep our families health.
But now, some in Congress are threatening access to care.
Tell Congress, protect patient care to keep America strong.