Republican candidate Saritha Komatireddy hit Attorney General Letitia James with a 52-count public indictment for dereliction of duty, arguing she prioritized national politics over New Yorkers' safety.
Former federal prosecutor Saritha Komatireddy released the faux court document ahead of their Spectrum-hosted debate, listing the “Exasperated People of the State of New York” as plaintiffs and charging the Democratic incumbent with neglecting core duties while building a national profile. The New York Post reported the cheeky campaign stunt framed James as too focused on President Trump and other political targets to deliver basic law enforcement for the state.
James, 67, is seeking a third term on November 3. Komatireddy, 42, served as a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn’s Eastern District of New York on cases involving terrorism, cybercrime, narcotics, money laundering, and public corruption. She cast the 52 counts as a demand that voters return the office to a prosecutor who will lock up repeat offenders, move dangerously mentally ill people into treatment, and root out fraud.
A James campaign spokesperson dismissed the filing as a press-release stunt and pointed to the attorney general’s daily court work, including a fresh Medicaid fraud case.
Komatireddy opened the document with a direct charge about priorities.
She wrote:
“The People do not allege that the defendant has been idle. They allege that she has been busy with the wrong things,”
And she added:
“While the defendant built a national reputation, much of the work of the office went undone,”
The complaint accused James of failing to intervene as New Yorkers froze to death last winter, allowing mentally ill people and repeat offenders to attack bystanders, supporting the state’s cashless bail law, and presiding over rising crime and homelessness. It also faulted her for not aggressively prosecuting Medicaid fraud, welfare fraud, and deed theft, and for skipping scrutiny of tax-exempt nonprofits that run shelters.
Counts 1 through 11 focused on the mentally ill and the homeless left on the street. The document claimed no evidence that in eight winters James built a mechanism, brought a case, or made a demand to protect the homeless from the cold, sent the Charities Bureau into a single shelter, or sought commitment of one New Yorker too sick to come indoors.
The text painted the human cost in blunt terms:
“New Yorkers froze on sidewalks. New Yorkers were shoved onto subway tracks by men every part of the system already knew. New Yorkers were burned alive in train cars,”
It continued:
“A family of five, three of them small children, died in a fire at an Endwell motel that a county used as a shelter. A Buffalo mother was shot in front of her three children by a man a court had released the day before.”
The complaint named more than three dozen victims it said were killed or badly injured by violent recidivists or mentally ill people who should have been confined. Counts 12 through 22 targeted repeat offenders, subway attackers, and what it called James siding with those offenders over victims and police.
Counts 23 and 24 addressed a spike in hate crimes and antisemitism and called for the Hate Crimes Unit to act. Counts 25 through 28 turned to sex crimes and a state-law gap that makes it harder to bring charges if a victim drank or used drugs before an alleged assault.
Komatireddy wrote that when a law keeps prosecutors from charging rape, the chief law enforcement officer must push to change it. She said James had eight legislative sessions and a Legislature led by her own party, yet beyond one social media post the document found no evidence she made the bill a priority. Gov. Kathy Hochul recently appointed James as special prosecutor to re-investigate the Cornell 7 sexual assault claims, putting the so-called involuntarily intoxication loophole back under scrutiny.
The demand for relief also called for an Office of Civil Commitment under the attorney general, staffed with law enforcement professionals and doctors. It asked voters to remove James on November 3 so the office returns to a prosecutor who will use its powers “for the purposes for which they were granted”, locking up repeat offenders, bringing the dangerously mentally ill indoors for treatment, and rooting out fraud that steals from the poor, the sick, and the taxpayer.
Counts 29 through 40 hit fraud and public money. The complaint said criminal indictments for Medicaid fraud fell from more than 100 a year before James took office to nine, and that the unit lost its federal certification. It dubbed the operation “the watchdog that did not bark.”
Komatireddy further claimed opioid settlement money was spent on snowblowers and headsets, that shelter executives drew seven-figure pay from grants James increased, and that she failed to push to close government-sponsored injection sites she described as illegal under federal law.
The James campaign answered by pointing to active cases. A spokesperson said:
“Attorney General Letitia James files real lawsuits in real courts every day to protect New Yorkers’ rights and their wallets,”
The same statement added:
“While Saritha Komatireddy spent today writing this press release, the Attorney General announced the arrest and indictment of a Queens pharmacy owner for defrauding Medicaid to the tune of $31 million.”
James has prosecuted Trump and his company for fraudulent practices and filed numerous lawsuits against the administration. She also commissioned the sexual misconduct probe of ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo that triggered his 2021 resignation; Cuomo denied wrongdoing.
A Siena University poll from last month put James at 52 percent and Komatireddy at 39 percent. That 13-point lead had shrunk by five points from the prior August survey. The two meet Thursday night in a debate hosted by Spectrum, with the election set for November 3.
Komatireddy’s document is not a real court filing. It is a campaign broadside designed to force a choice about what the attorney general’s office is for, high-profile political cases, or the daily grind of repeat offenders, untreated mental illness, shelter failures, and fraud against taxpayers.
New Yorkers will decide soon enough whether the record of the last eight years matches the job they hired.
