Latest news with #WhiteCollarFraud
Fox News
28-04-2025
- Business
- Fox News
Cousin of infamous fraudster 'Crazy Eddie' out to bring down Trump nemesis NY AG Letitia James
EXCLUSIVE: New York Attorney General Letitia James, who became President Donald Trump's nemesis after accusing him of mortgage fraud, is now battling the very same allegations, and her chief tormentor is a legendary scam artist who says he knows a crook when he sees one. Sam Antar, who kept the books for his cousin, "Crazy Eddie" Antar, while he built a New York-area consumer electronics empire, helped his late relative skim cash and inflate the value of their company before leaving investors high and dry in the late 1980s. He says he knows every trick in the fraud book and smells a rat in James' real estate filings. "I don't know how the wheels of justice will turn and, to be frank, I don't care as long as I'm right," said Antar, who has made his findings public. "If they fail to convict her, it's their humiliation and their embarrassment." Antar pleaded guilty to multiple felonies, cooperating with prosecutors to help convict his cousin, whose chain's ads featured a maniacal pitchman pledging, "Our prices are insane!" While Eddie Antar fled to Israel, was extradited back to the U.S. and served time before dying in 2016, Sam Antar reinvented himself as a fraud expert for government agencies and law firms. He runs a website where he posts about his various investigations. In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Antar said he worked alone and was the first to unearth documentation of James' alleged mortgage fraud and posted it to his White Collar Fraud website weeks ago. He said the strength of his findings, backed by his renowned reputation in the field of uncovering white-collar fraud for the government, eventually led to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) picking up the case and sending a criminal referral to the Justice Department. "It's not the Trump administration at war with Tish James, it's me bringing her to accountability and justice," Antar told Fox News Digital. "I'm not the Trump administration. I was investigating Tish James because that is what I do." "I took all kinds of risks doing it, from retaliation, to libel, to reputational risk. But I stand by everything." Antar said his findings were all uncovered independently by him and that he is not working for the government by looking into James. Fox News Digital asked the FHFA and the White House to corroborate his claims but did not receive a response. "Everything that I've done is thoroughly documented," said Antar, who said he's a Democrat. "This is not bullying. This is not the Trump administration at war. Trump has his own agenda. I don't care. I am not Donald Trump. All I did was, I did my forensic accounting and I thoroughly documented everything that I did." Antar's investigations uncovered documents stretching back as far as 1983, which he said indicate James may have been misrepresenting her financial situation for decades in order to nail sweetheart loans from lenders. The FHFA accuses James of falsifying records to meet certain lending requirements and score favorable loan terms. James, 66, denies the allegations and claims Trump is behind the move, calling it a "revenge tour" for the $454 million civil fraud lawsuit she successfully spearheaded against him last year. Trump and the Trump Organization are currently appealing. In Trump's civil fraud case, the then-presidential candidate was accused of financial misrepresentation and providing false statements about his real estate, the same types of crimes James is being accused of by the FHFA. Antar told Fox News Digital that he started digging into James' records months ago after he looked into the costs of her private flight travel as attorney general. Property in Sterling Street, Norfolk, VA In the criminal referral letter sent to the Justice Department, FHFA Director William Pult cited a property in Virginia that James allegedly claimed as her principal residence in 2023 despite being a public office holder in New York at that same time. She bought the property around the time the Trump trial was getting underway. The FHFA said primary residence mortgages receive more favorable loan terms, including lower interest rates, compared to secondary residence mortgages. In her mortgage documents, James reaffirmed this would be her primary residence, Antar said. "She gave her relative power of attorney and declared, in a notarized document, that she intended to make the property her primary residence," Antar said. "If that's true, she'd be disqualified from holding office in New York. Neither she nor the relative filed for a homestead exemption, yet the mortgage was issued under the condition that both would live there. That's how she got favorable terms." A building permit issued on James' New York property on July 15, 2024, lists that property as the "JAMES RESIDENCE" and states "Remain Occupied," according to the FHFA letter. James' office told Fox News Digital that she has been clear that she is not using the Virginia home as her primary residence because she lives in New York. In a letter to the Justice Department this week, James' lawyers told Attorney General Pam Bondi that while the power-of-attorney form "mistakenly stated the property to be Ms. James' principal residence," Pult "absolutely ignored" an all-caps statement to the mortgage loan broker two weeks prior that the property "WILL NOT be my primary residence" but would rather be the primary residence of her niece. James' attorney, Abbe Lowell, said emails showed the mortgage broker understood this. Property in Brooklyn, NY In 2001, James purchased a property in Brooklyn with its certificate of occupancy listing the property as having five units, but James, the FHFA said, consistently misrepresented the same property as having four units in both building permit applications and numerous mortgage documents and applications. This enabled James to get a lower mortgage interest rate, known as a conforming loan, since conforming loans are only available on four-unit or fewer structures. She also netted mortgage assistance through the Home Affordable Modification Program, a government-run program that provides homeowners at risk of foreclosure with reduced monthly mortgage payments and recipients had to have properties with four dwellings or fewer, the referral states. James' lawyers told Bondi that the residence "has four floors and, for as long as Ms. James has lived there, the property has always functioned as a four-person residence." The certificate of occupancy for the property listed online still shows the 2001 version, listed as five units. The DOB told Fox News Digital that that document is the most recent certificate of occupancy they have on file for that building. James' office told Fox News that James has been clear in her filings that the property is a four-unit dwelling and that the previous owner listed the property as a five-unit before she purchased it in 2001. Mortgages with father listed as her husband Meanwhile, James, who never married, is also accused of saying her father was her husband to obtain two mortgages in Queens as a married couple. The documents allegedly show that the property James purchased with her father had both parties listed as "husband and wife" in 1983 and 2000. "While this was a long time ago, it raises serious concerns about the validity of Ms. James representations on mortgage applications," Pulte wrote. Lowell, who accused the FHFA of "cherry-picking," writes the deed lists her father "and Letitia James, his daughter.'" "As I have set forth, the exhibits Director Pulte included with his letter are notable for the fact that he omitted numerous other records (some of which we have included) which refute the allegations of impropriety, and make clear that a mistake on one line had no significance," Lowell wrote. "If there is anything that you believe I have not addressed in the real facts and documents provided, please let me know. Otherwise, we would expect a quick response confirming that this referral matter has been closed by the Department." Antar, meanwhile, continues to back his findings. "I documented everything that I did," he said. "And I stand by everything I did. I did this on my own time, my own dime." READ THE CRIMINAL REFERRAL BELOW. APP USERS CLICK HERE.
Newsweek
24-04-2025
- Business
- Newsweek
Expert Who Uncovered Letitia James Fraud Allegations Releases New Documents
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Sam Antar, the financial expert who accused New York Attorney General Letitia James of mortgage fraud, released new documents this week as part of his investigation. Newsweek reached out to James' office for comment via email. Why It Matters James, a Democrat, has become a national figure in her civil case accusing President Donald Trump and top executives at his family company, The Trump Organization, of conspiring to inflate his net worth by billions of dollars on financial statements provided to banks and insurers to facilitate deals and secure loans. New York State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron sided with James last year. Now, James is facing fraud allegations of her own. Antar alleged that she falsely stated the number of units in a Brooklyn property she owns, saying it had four units, not five, in 2021, which allowed her to access lower interest rates and other financial advantages. She has also been accused of using a property in Virginia as her primary residence to secure a better mortgage. James has denied any wrongdoing, describing the allegations as "baseless." "It is nothing more than a headline, nothing more than, again, retaliation against all of the actions that I have taken successfully against Donald Trump," she told Spectrum News earlier in April. New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks at a press conference in New York City on February 16, 2024. New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks at a press conference in New York City on February 16, 2024. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images What to Know Antar this week posted new documents to the White Collar Fraud blog that he says support the allegations that James incorrectly stated the number of units in the Brooklyn building. The allegations stem from a certificate of occupancy from the New York City Department of Buildings, dated January 26, 2001, which states that the building has dwellings for five families—one in the basement, one on the first floor, one on the second floor, and two on the third floor. The New York Daily News' editorial board noted this certificate, filed by previous owners of the building, was not accurate at the time. Antar reported a flurry of new documents that showed James did not classify it as a five-family dwelling. For instance, a document from Citibank in August 2019 described the building as a "4 family" dwelling. A June 2021 document described it as a "1 or 2 family residence of dwelling." In total, he posted 10 mortgage documents, none of which list the building as having five units. He also alleged there were six electric service designations at the brownstone, suggesting five units and a common area, but did not post the utility records in full. In a post on Monday, he wrote that the 2001 certificate remains "legally binding today" as it has "never been amended or suspended." "More importantly, if James believed the Certificate of Occupancy was incorrect, she had a legal obligation to file an Alt-1 application to formally change the unit count—something she has never done in 24 years of ownership," the post reads. Antar is a former accountant who was convicted of fraud related to the Crazy Eddie electronics chain and has since been involved in forensic accounting on other white-collar crime cases. What People Are Saying New York Attorney General Letitia James told Spectrum News: "Let me just say to all New Yorkers and all Americans: the allegations are baseless. The allegations are nothing more than a revenge tour, and as you mentioned, my office was successful in securing a $454 million judgment against Donald Trump and others for exaggerating the value of his assets. He engaged in a pattern and practice of fraud, and the interest is accruing each and every day whilst the case is on appeal in the first department. Kyle Welch, an associate professor at George Washington University's School of Business who specializes in financial fraud, previously told Newsweek: "The irony here is almost too on-the-nose. Letitia James built her 'nobody is above the law' brand by prosecuting Trump for inflating his financial condition—statements that came with disclaimers, involved banks that said they weren't harmed, and still resulted in a half-billion-dollar fraud conviction." Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani previously told Newsweek: "There's potential mortgage fraud because your mortgage rates for your primary residence are gonna be lower than your mortgage rate for a secondary resident, like the rental or vacation home, so she said this with a primary residence to get a better mortgage." Sam Antar, in a post on Thursday, wrote: "Even if the property physically contains only four units, representing it as such on mortgage documents directly contradicts the legal Certificate of Occupancy — creating a fundamental misrepresentation on loan applications." What Happens Next The Federal Housing Finance Agency has referred James to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi for prosecution. Whether this amounts to a formal criminal investigation is yet to be seen.
