Guest post by Joel Gilbert
New York Attorney General Letitia James has long portrayed herself as a crusader for justice, particularly when it comes to holding powerful figures accountable for financial misconduct.
But a closer examination of the estate of her late father, Robert James, reveals a disturbing and ironic tale of legal manipulation, family dysfunction, and possible fraud – with Letitia James herself at the center.
In 1983, three years before Robert James’s death in 1986, Letitia James was just 24 years old and living at her family’s two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn with seven siblings. She had not yet entered law school.
That’s when she and her father, Robert James, applied for a mortgage loan to purchase a small home at 114-04 Inwood Street in Queens as “husband and wife.”
According to federal law, misrepresenting one’s relationship on a loan application is a form of “false representation,” or mortgage fraud, a serious offense punishable by fines or imprisonment.
Though Robert James died in 1986, it wasn’t until 1999 that Letitia James filed for letters of administration over his estate. The Inwood Street house she purchased with her father was listed as the only asset.
Letitia claimed the estate’s value was $105,000 – matching the bond she posted as administrator – and claimed there were no debts, no income, and no personal property.
Perhaps most curiously, Letitia handled the entire process pro se – meaning she did not retain legal counsel.
She wrote and submitted every petition, affirmation, and waiver herself, and even filed a sworn declaration confirming she was not acting as an attorney nor accepting compensation from the estate.
This level of self-representation is rare in estate matters, especially when the filer is a licensed attorney and public official.
It also meant that Letitia, being both heir and administrator, faced no legal cross-examination about the estate’s inconsistencies.
The Robert James estate filings reveal a fractured family dynamic. Letitia James stated that two of her siblings – Alberta and Marsha James – were “missing”. The two missing sisters were listed with their whereabouts as “unknown”.
Letitia James, acting as petitioner and being the daughter of Robert James, filed an affirmation of due diligence detailing her many efforts to locate them.
She claimed to have contacted 11 hospitals, including Harlem, Bellevue, Lincoln, and Kings County.
She contacted the NYC Department of Corrections, New York State correctional services, and the U.S. Department of Justice. She checked with NYC mortuaries in all five boroughs.
Letitia reported that their mother, Nellie James, had not seen Alberta since January 1997 or Marsha since March 1989, and could provide no further information on their whereabouts.
Other family members also had no contact or information. What level of mental illness could cause sisters Alberta and Marsha James to simply disappear?
In the estate filing, Letitia’s brother, Rickie James, was confirmed to have been diagnosed with schizophrenia around 1975. He was not under medication or doctor’s care at the time of the filing.
He lived at the estate property that Letitia had purchased with her father and refused all voluntary medical treatment.
The court was informed that Rickie had never been legally certified as developmentally disabled or mentally incapacitated under New York law.
The court was notified that despite his condition, the family objected to involuntary hospitalization.
The estate filing indicates that of Letitia’s seven siblings, three of them suffered from mental illness.
Mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and certain mood disorders have hereditary components.
Though not determinative of her own mental health, if three siblings were affected, this could indicate James has a strong familial predisposition to mental illness herself.
Letitia James rose to national prominence for prosecuting Donald Trump on charges of financial fraud, securing a judgment that accused him of inflating his assets to obtain favorable loan terms.
In her public statements, she declared, “Everyday Americans cannot lie to a bank to get a mortgage to buy a home, and if they did, our government would throw the book at them.”
Yet in her own life, Letitia James apparently did just that – misrepresenting herself as her father’s wife to help secure a mortgage loan, and later inheriting the property with herself as sole estate legal officer and administrator, while under a veil of missing heirs and mental illness.
The estate of Robert James may appear small in monetary terms, but the story it tells is immense in significance. Letitia James rose to prominence as a watchdog.
But when placed under the same scrutiny she demands of others, her own family dealings reveal red flags: falsified mortgage documents, missing heirs, self-administration of a legally sensitive estate, and mental health complications within the household.
If the roles were reversed, and this conduct were uncovered in someone else’s life – especially a political opponent – Letitia James would be the first to launch an investigation.
How much longer can New Yorkers stand for an Attorney General who, throughout her life, behaves as though she is above the law? The question now is: When will Letitia James resign?
Joel Gilbert, is a Los Angeles-based film producer, and president of Highway 61 Entertainment. He is on Twitter: @JoelSGilbert.
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