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.
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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.
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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.
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