AG Letitia James Does One-Tenth the Medicaid Fraud Recovery of Her Predecessors;
Komatireddy Pledges 20 New Criminal Prosecutors to Take Back What’s Owed to Taxpayers.

NEW YORK – As Albany scrambles to close another yawning budget gap, Saritha Komatireddy, the crime-fighting New York State Attorney General candidate and former top federal prosecutor, says a fix is hiding in plain sight: prosecute fraud.

“New York is hemorrhaging money it does not have,” Ms. Komatireddy said. “The Attorney General’s office has the power to claw back hundreds of millions of dollars in fraudulent claims each year, money that rightly belongs to taxpayers. Letitia James has all but abandoned that mission. I will restore it on my first day in office.”

Under Ms. James, Medicaid fraud recoveries have collapsed from $168 million in 2019 to just $31 million in 2024, the Komatireddy campaign noted. Meanwhile, the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit’s budget has grown 57 percent. For years, New York ran half as many investigations as California, despite having more staff. By one analysis, New York completed just eight investigations per billion dollars spent on Medicaid, the third-lowest rate in the nation and 63 percent below the national average.

Ms. James does about one-tenth the fraud enforcement work of her Democratic predecessors, the Komatireddy campaign said.  The AG’s office once returned hundreds of millions of dollars annually to the public purse and often secured 100-plus criminal convictions per year. For example, in 2009, the office recovered $283 million. In 2013, the office recovered $335 million. Under Ms. James, it does a fraction of that work, hitting all-time lows of $19 million and 8 criminal convictions — all while cashing ever-larger budget checks.

“As a federal prosecutor, I personally prosecuted multimillion-dollar frauds and recovered more money in my career than this entire unit did in a single year,” said Komatireddy. “That’s not a boast; it’s an indictment of James’s failed leadership in the Office of the Attorney General. We can do so much better for the People of New York, who are already taxed into a corner.”

Ms. Komatireddy pledged that, as Attorney General, she will deploy 20 additional criminal prosecutors to the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, reinvigorate civil enforcement through the False Claims Act, and return the AG’s office to the standard it once set for the nation.

“Albany doesn’t need another tax. It needs an Attorney General who does her job,” Ms. Komatireddy continued. “When I take office, the era of looking the other way ends.”

New York spends more per Medicaid recipient than any other state.