Nov.04

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

...And the Case against Letitia James Might Collapse

You have to give it to the team of witch hunters who work for Donald Trump. Yes, they are more than willing to ride roughshod over ethics, the law and human decency, as circumstances might dictate. But, on the other hand, they are also incredibly stupid. What can we say? People contain multitudes.

As readers will recall, the desperate effort to smear Letitia James is based on a house she bought in Virginia. It's weedy (and getting weedier by the day), but the basic allegation made by the government, and its "star" real estate attorney prosecutor Lindsey Halligan, is that James bought a house in Virginia to be a second residence, and got mortgage terms consistent with that usage. However, she actually used it as an investment property, which should have meant a higher mortgage rate. Ipso facto, fraud. Here is the relevant verbiage from the actual indictment:

The loan was originated by OVM Financial under a signed Second Home Rider, which required JAMES, as the sole borrower to occupy and use the property as her secondary residence, and prohibited its use as a timesharing or other shared ownership arrangement or agreement that requires her either to rent the property or give any other person any control over the occupancy or use of the property.

Despite these representations, the Peronne Property was not occupied or used by JAMES as a secondary residence and was instead used as a rental investment property, renting the property to a family of (3).

This misrepresentation allowed JAMES to obtain favorable loan terms not available for investment properties, including a note rate of 3.000% (avoiding a 0.815% higher comparable investment property rate of 3.815%, resulting in approximately $17,837 in rate savings over the life of the loan),

The house is located on Peronne Avenue in Norfolk; hence "Peronne Property."

Politico has been all over this saga, and somehow managed to lay hands on copies of the various documents that James signed. Yesterday, the outlet published one of those documents, which bears James' signature, and includes this:

Borrower will maintain exclusive control over the occupancy of the Property, including short-term rentals, and will not subject the Property to any timesharing or other shared ownership arrangement or to any rental pool or agreement that requires Borrower either to rent the Property or give a management firm or any other person or entity any control over the occupancy or use of the Property. Borrower will keep the Property available primarily as a residence for Borrower's personal use and enjoyment for at least one year after the date of this second Home Rider, unless Lender otherwise agrees in writing, which consent shall not be unreasonably withheld, or unless extenuating circumstances exist which are beyond Borrower's control.

There is a veritable smorgasbord of opportunities there for James' defense team, but the one that particularly matters is the one we emphasized, which makes clear that renting out the property was actually completely within the rules. The only thing that was forbidden was engaging some sort of professional service (a timeshare company, a management company, etc.) to handle the rental, because that would push the arrangement from "personal use" into "investment."

To actually punish James in the way that Donald Trump desires, then, the prosecution would have to accomplish three things:

1. Convincing a jury that James not only rented out the property (legal), but that she did so aided by the services of some third-party in the real estate rental business (not legal).
   
   
2. Convincing a jury that James not only did the latter, but that she did so knowingly. (Z) has been involved in a number of transactions like this, and there are always hundreds of pages of paperwork requiring dozens of signatures and initials. He most certainly did not read every word, or even 5% of the words. And he obviously did not remember things he never read in the first place. It is very plausible that even if James broke the rules and engaged a management company, she didn't realize she was doing wrong. And it's not enough to prove that she "probably" knew; for it to be fraud it has to be proven that she DID know.
   
   
3. Convincing a jury that James not only broke the rules and knew about it, but that her alleged misdeeds, which netted her less than $20,000, are worthy of a "throw the book at her" punishment.

This is a pretty steep hill to climb; no wonder none of the other people in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Eastern Virginia wanted to touch it with a 10-foot pole.

One wonders if Halligan and her crack research staff even knew about this document that Politico found. Even more importantly, one wonders what Halligan's end game is. Does she really expect to get a conviction and a harsh punishment? If so, she's probably delusional. Is she just performing for an audience of one? (Truth be told: probably.) And does that audience of one really think he's going to inflict vengeance on his enemies? Or is it just enough to make them squirm a little before a judge says "Dismissed with prejudice"? It's so very hard to understand the thought processes here, much of the time. (Z)