CrimsonPhantom
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Letitia James Lies About Caller ID and Misuses Official AG Line in Attempt to Intimid
Quote:On October 21, 2025, I received a phone call. It lasted for 51 seconds. “Hello, this is Letitia James. Your number showed up on my Caller ID. Who is this?”
The voice was unmistakable. I knew it was her. I had just finished calling about twenty phone numbers associated with New York Attorney General Letitia James’s seven siblings, hoping to learn more about her niece, Shamice Thompson-Hairston, with whom James had jointly purchased a home in Norfolk, Virginia. I was calling from my California-based cell phone with an 805 area code. However, no one picked up and I had left no messages.
With Letitia James herself suddenly on the line, I identified myself and explained to James I was working on an article about her family background and asked for the identity of her niece’s parents. James responded, “No comment!” and disconnected.
At first, having believed her, I thought Letitia James’s phone call to be only a mistake. Now, 10 days later, I believe this was no innocent call. None of the numbers I had called was the Attorney General’s number.
I had not called Letitia James. This meant James had lied when she said my phone number had come up on her Caller ID.
Checking my Caller ID, I saw Letitia James had called me from telephone number 212-416-8051. Upon a quick Google search, it turned out to be one of the main landlines at the New York State Attorney General’s office.
Her announcement, “This is Letitia James,” now seems more like an attempt at intimidation. She was using her position and her office to send me a message that I should not call her relatives.
However, as a reporter, I have every right to call anyone I wish to ask a question, just as they have every right to either answer or decline.
The key point now is that James placed the call from the office of New York Attorney General (a “state telephone”) and it involved a matter that is arguably personal.
She was most likely calling on behalf of some family member who had told her my phone number had appeared on their Caller ID, and James was acting as a guardian. It was clearly not agency business.
Letitia James had knowing called my long-distance number with an 805 California area code on behalf of her family.
New York State’s ethics laws and regulations draw a clear line between the use of state-resources for official business and their use for private ends.
Under both the ethics statute Public Officers Law § 74 and the implementing regulation 9 NYCRR § 7.7, a public official may not divert state supplies, equipment or services for non-governmental (private) purposes
Under 9 NYCRR § 7.7© it is explicitly stated that “State telephones may not be used for non-governmental long-distance calls, except for toll-free calls, collect calls, and calls billed to a personal telephone number.”
The regulation continues, “State telephones may be used for incidental and necessary personal local calls that are of limited number and duration and do not conflict with the proper exercise of the duties of the State employee.”
Under the ethics statute, any knowing and intentional violation of § 74 may subject the officer to a civil penalty of up to $10,000, plus the value of any benefit received.
In other words, the regulations permit only a narrow category of personal use that is incidental, local, limited in time and number, and clearly subordinate to official business.
Any broader use of state telephones for private, non-governmental, long distance, or outside-business purposes is prohibited.
Taken together, all the provisions mean that when a statewide official like Attorney General Letitia James uses the state’s telephone lines to conduct business that is private, personal, or unrelated to the public agency’s work, it runs afoul of the law.
The implications are serious from both governance and accountability perspectives.
The attorney general is New York state’s chief law-enforcement officer, and the expectations for ethical conduct and stewardship of public resources are high.
The fact that she used of an official line in a personal context raises questions of public trust, transparency and proper use of taxpayer-funded resources.
Furthermore, the optics matter. Why would the attorney general place a long distance call to a journalist from an agency line while announcing her name, and why did she decline to comment and hang up?
The rules are clear. State equipment and telephone lines are for official business only, not personal or private pursuits.
The regulation 9 NYCRR § 7.7 permits only minimal, incidental personal local calls of limited duration, and the ethics statute Public Officers Law § 74 prohibits the misappropriation of state resources for private business.
In the end, Letitia James’s 51-second call from the New York Attorney General’s main line to a California journalist investigating her family’s real-estate ties was neither a mistake nor a courtesy.
The call was a calculated misuse of taxpayer-funded resources to shield private family interests.
By invoking her identity while addressing a purely personal matter, in a long-distance call unrelated to any state function, James flouted the explicit limits of 9 NYCRR § 7.7 and the ethical mandate of Public Officers Law § 74, inviting a civil penalty and eroding the public trust she is sworn to uphold.
When the state’s top law-enforcement officer treats government property as a personal hotline, the breach is not merely technical, it is a stark reminder that accountability must begin at the top, lest the rules that bind every public servant become optional for those who enforce them. No one is above the law, Tish!
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[NEWS] Letitia James Lies About Caller ID and Misuses Official AG Line in Attempt to Intimid
