NYC NOW - Evening Roundup: What to Know About the Fraud Charges Against AG Letitia James, and Listening Tables Help Heal Columbia’s Campus

Episode Date: October 10, 2025

New York State’s top law enforcement official, Attorney General Letitia James, is facing federal charges of mortgage fraud. Plus, after years of protests over the Israel-Hamas war and allegations of discrimination, some Columbia University students and faculty question whether honest dialogue is possible. And finally, Gov. Kathy Hochul and mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani both want universal child care for the state but they disagree on who’s paying for it.

What to know about the fraud charges against Attorney General Letitia James. And dialogue around listening tables help heal Columbia University's campus. From WMYC, this is NYC Now. I'm Jinné Pierre. Democratic officials in New York are responding with full force to federal fraud charges against Attorney General Lettisha James. President Trump's Justice Department secured an indictment against the state's top law enforcement official this week, after he publicly urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to bring the case.

James faces federal charges of mortgage fraud. U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the charges baseless while speaking to reporters at the Capitol. This is what tyranny looks like. Donald Trump has turned the Justice Department into his personal attack dog to go after his political enemies. This is tyranny. This is outrageous. Every American should be horrified. absolutely horrified about what has happened.

The Justice Department's case centers around a house in Norfolk, Virginia, that James bought back in 2020. She purchased the house with her niece and says she never planned to actually live at that residence. Here's WMYC's Jimmy Vilkine. But prosecutors say that James declared on mortgage loan documents that the house would be a second residence for her. They say that she therefore was able to get a lower interest rate as opposed to what prosecutors say she did,

which was use it as an investment property and rent it out. So that alleged mislisting, according to prosecutors, let James get a lower interest rate saving her about $19,000. In a video statement following the indictment, Attorney General James said this. These charges are baseless, and the president's own public statements make clear that his only goal is political retribution at any cost.

James and Trump have sparred in court for years. Their beef goes back to Trump's first term in office. During her election campaigns in 2018, James called Trump an illegitimate president. She also told supporters that she would closely scrutinize his affairs. And that's exactly what she in her office did. In 2022, James sued Trump and his business and said that they had systematically inflated the value of their assets, which allowed them to obtain more favorable loan terms. Here's my colleague Jimmy again.

So both Trump and James were present for a trial that occurred at a courtroom in lower Manhattan. This played out for several weeks. Before finally in 2024, James won a penalty of more than $350 million. So this case really damaged Trump's bona fides as a businessman. And the whole time, Trump is called the matter a witch hunt. Republicans have said that James' cases against Trump were political. Congress member Elise Daphonic from the North country called the charges against James, quote, long overdue.

The Democratic Attorney's General Association is raising money for James' legal defense for what is said to be a historic case. Columbia University is using listening tables to help heal its campus, which has been torn by deep divisions. More on that after the break. Columbia University is trying to heal its divided campus by hosting listening tables, But after years of protests over the Israel Hamas war, allegations of discrimination and harassment, and a sweeping deal with the federal government, some students and faculty question whether honest

dialogue is possible. WMYC's Jessica Gould has more. Students and staff are sitting around tables under the domed roof of one of Columbia's stately buildings. They're discussing a range of topics, from the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, to concerns about cafeteria food and gym hours. Columbia's press office invites me to listen to the conversations, but I can't record them. Gil Ayal is a sociology professor who studies trust. He came up with the idea for these tables last year as a way to bring people together. The point of the tables is for people to listen to one another without necessarily judging,

but just listen and understand where the other person is coming from, especially in such a fraught moment. It's a simple idea, a few tables in a cafeteria or on the lawn, and space to build empathy. One of the earliest tables was on October 7th last year, the first anniversary of the attacks by Hamas on Israel and the start of Israel's war in Gaza. At the same time,

At the same time, there were two dueling protests on the quad. Some students held up pictures of Israeli hostages and played Hebrew songs. Other students read the names of Palestinians who have been killed in the bombing. The listening table was in a quieter spot in the middle. Beck Sappington is a junior who joined the tables last year, and he now facilitates some of them. I was a freshman when Columbia had the big protests, and it felt like there were no valid outlets to speak. I feel like it's just kind of a pressure release point for all the turbulence on campus. But it's a tough moment for this experiment. Earlier this year, the Trump administration

froze hundreds of millions of dollars in research funds at Columbia. And it only released the money after Colombia made a deal to pay fines and agreed to more federal oversight. Many students and faculty say the agreement goes against academic freedom and free speech. Colombia administrators insist free speech still exists at the university. Amy Hungerford is dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. It absolutely does, and the moment it doesn't, then we've, I think, lost our way as a university. At the same time, she says speech on campus should also be respectful, and she calls the tables a perfect example. Where that respect pervades the exchange of hard ideas,

In those settings, we fulfill an educational mission that I think our classrooms strive also to fulfill, which is to create space where people can think hard about hard questions. But back at the Listening Tables event, Gil Ayal, the professor who came up with the idea last year, says even he isn't sure how safe it is to speak out at Columbia right now. He's Israeli and especially worried about a definition of anti-Semitism, Colombia recently adopted that equates some criticism of Israel with hate speech. Now I'm not sure that I can really protect people if somebody decides to report them. The Trump administration has already tried to deport several of Colombia's most outspoken critics of Israel.

And when I reached out to students who have been public about their pro-Palestinian views, they said they're too afraid of the government and the university to talk to me. They said they definitely aren't coming to the tables. Hamid Dabashi is professor of Iranian studies at Columbia and co-founder of the Center for Palestine Studies. I am very critical of the administration. You mean Colombia? Because I think lawyers have taken over and everything they say is scared. What are the implications? And as a result, I no longer trust in leadership, but I believe in citizenship. He says that's why he started facilitating some of the tables too.

I think our campus is wounded and needs healing. I weave through the tables. Students and staff are debating Colombia's deal with the Trump administration and all the changes, like new security officers and discipline policies, the dozens of students who have been suspended or expelled, how the gates are always locked now. Columbia's press team says, I can summarize all of this, but again, no recording. I ask Ayal, what he thinks about them giving me.

access to this particular event. You could take the cynical view and say, this is a PR stand for the university, and it is, to some extent, there's truth in that. But what's happening here is real. The vast majority of the students want to understand one another, want to be in dialogue with one another. There's more tables planned this fall. That's WMYC's Jessica Gould. Before we go, Governor Kathy Hokel is urging New Yorkers to be prepared to be prepared

for a strong storm system expected to hit the metro region during the second half of the holiday weekend. The National Weather Service has issued high wind warnings for Queens, Brooklyn, and Nassau and Suffolk counties starting at noon on Sunday. It'll last until six on Monday morning. When gusts of up to 60 miles per hour are also possible in some areas, they can bring down trees and cause power outages. Between one and a half and three inches of rain is also forecast in the lower mid-Hudson Valley, New York City and Long Island, and a coastal flood watch is in effect for the city and Long Island from Sunday morning to Monday evening. But don't let that ruin your weekend. Have a lovely one, and thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. I'm Jene Pierre.