Embattled New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is herself under indictment, is now facing fresh scrutiny after reports surfaced that she has been housing a fugitive relative in her Virginia home for the past five years.According to the Daily Mail, James’s grandniece, Nakia Thompson, has been living with her three children in the attorney general’s three-bedroom property in Norfolk, Virginia, since 2020.
“Ms. Thompson was sentenced to probation for misdemeanor convictions for assault and battery and trespassing, and has willfully avoided probation supervision,” Keith Acree from the North Carolina Department of Corrections told the Daily Mail.
“An absconder is considered a fugitive. Thompson faces arrest if she is located in North Carolina,” Acree added, noting further that her crimes were considered low-level and thus, “non-extraditable.”
Thompson told a grand jury in June that she has been living rent-free in James’s $235,000 Virginia home since the property was purchased, and that she does not contribute to maintenance or basic upkeep, according to a previous report by The New York Times.
Court records show that Thompson was convicted in October 2011 on one count of assault and battery and one count of second-degree trespass. She was subsequently sentenced to probation, which she later failed to complete, the New York Post reported.
She also has prior convictions for assault or threats against the government in 2006 and for simple assault and affray in 2005.
According to the North Carolina Department of Corrections, individuals classified as absconders may face serious consequences, including an extension or revocation of their probation or even a return to prison.
James was indicted by a federal grand jury in Virginia on charges of bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution to obtain a mortgage for her Virginia home — allegations she has repeatedly and emphatically denied.
On Monday, James dismissed the case as politically motivated, noting that it was brought by a Trump-appointed prosecutor, and vowed to vigorously fight the charges in court.
“I stand on solid rock and I will not bow, I will not break, I will not bend,” she said at a rally for left-wing socialist New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
It should be noted that when James ran for attorney general in 2018, she did so on a platform to “get Trump” – a promise she kept after later charging him with mortgage fraud. She secured a $474 million judgment against him in what many legal observers described as a sham trial, an amount that was later tossed out by a New York appeals court.
Two of the five judges agreed that Trump was property held liable for mortgage fraud, but two others disagreed, saying Trump was wrongly convicted and that the case should be retried. The fifth judge said James should have never brought the case to begin with.
It’s now on appeal to the state’s highest court.
“Today’s ruling by the New York appeals court is a resounding victory for President Trump and his company,” said Trump’s former personal attorney Alina Habba, who helped represent him in the case and was later named interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, at the time.
“The court struck down the outrageous and unlawful $464 million penalty, confirming what we have said from the beginning: the Attorney General’s case was politically motivated, legally baseless, and grossly excessive,” she added.
“A $500 million day and an awesome victory for President Trump!” noted Trump attorney Christopher Kise. “The reality here is that President Trump was always worth even more than what was reflected in the financial statements and the New York Attorney General simply disregarded well established principles
