With New York State Attorney General Letitia James being investigated for mortgage fraud for a house she purchased in Virginia, it might be time to consider something else. Women.
The Crusader
They called her a crusader. The woman who brought down giants. A leader who said what others wouldn’t say, not because it was hard, but because it was good for headlines. Letitia James stood tall on stage. She spoke of men who had too much power.
“She believed women,” she said. And the crowd clapped. Yes, she believed women. But believing is easy. Listening is hard.
When it was against Con Ed, she believed. When it was the National Women’s Soccer League, she believed. When it was the Hip Hop Dance Conservatory, or the Sweet and Vicious club, or chefs Mario Batali and Joseph Bastianich, she believed the women and got them monetary settlements too.
And when it was Andrew Cuomo, she truly believed.
She believed with fists in the air and a press release on the table. She called for his resignation.
She stood with confidence at a lectern.
“No man—no matter how powerful—should be allowed to harass women.”
The crowd applauded. Reporters quoted her. Hashtags bloomed like fungus on a rotting log.
The Fall of Cuomo
She was the self-righteous virtue signaler for humankind. And she took down Cuomo—Governor of New York.
Cuomo’s accusers came forward—ten, eleven. They said he touched them or leaned too close. He made them uncomfortable. There were words. Glances. Questions. “Do you like older men?”
James dropped a 168-page report like it was holy scripture.
She said, he had broken state and federal law. But what had he done?
Cuomo wasn’t charged with sexual assault, with drugging. No cornered victim. He didn’t French kiss someone without consent.
What he did was touch a cheek, a back, a waist. He used words that belonged to a time before HR departments. They said he made them uncomfortable. Not terrified. Not injured. Just uneasy. That was the crime. Not a felony. Not a misdemeanor. Just a vibe.
Kissed someone on the cheek. Called someone “sweetheart.” Said she looked nice that day.
He was from a different time. An older man was trying to keep up with a world that had changed while he was running a state. He was an older Italian. Raised to kiss on both cheeks. Raised to believe women liked compliments. He didn’t pinch. Didn’t grope. But he looked. They didn’t like how he looked at them. That was fair. That’s how they felt. But feelings don’t make a crime.
The press didn’t ask for more. The headlines were the verdict. Cuomo resigned.
James declared victory for women. For truth. For justice. She brought down a governor. Then she tried to take his place. She ran for governor. Briefly. Until she saw the numbers. And then she stopped because winning is harder than accusing.
The Man Behind the Curtain
Behind every powerful person is someone they trust, and for Letitia James, that was Ibrahim Khan, her chief of staff. He was always there like a shadow that took notes. He ran her campaigns. Managed her calendar. Filtered the visitors. He made sure things didn’t blow up—on her. Knew headlines. He knew exactly how long a scandal could sit before it started to stink. He had been with her before the fame. He ran her campaigns and shaped her image.
Khan was polished. Soft-spoken. Generous with donors, brutal with dissent. He handled things efficiently.He was married with children at home. But that didn’t stop what some would call a “propensity.”
The rumors didn’t speak of flirtation. They spoke of fear. Of power imbalances. Of women confused, afraid, maybe drugged. Encounters that blurred the line between seduction and subjugation. He was the guy who buried the problems. And then, one day, he became one.
The Party at Woodrow’s
It was December 2014. A holiday party at Woodrow’s Pub in Lower Manhattan. Angel DuBose, 47, worked for the Public Advocate’s office. The Public Advocate was Letitia James. Her chief of staff was Ibrahim Khan.
DuBose said he gave her a drink. She said something was in it, and she blacked out.
She said Khan assaulted her. Maybe others. Maybe even James. Her memory—a blur of sound, weight, and darkness. She filed a report a month later, in January 2015.
She was moved from the 15th floor—Khan’s floor—to the 10th. James didn’t fire Khan. She just moved her.
DuBose didn’t want to tell this story ten years later. But she did: She got out of the cab and thanked the driver. She didn’t remember his name, but she remembered his kindness. Then she went upstairs to her sister’s apartment. She was crying. The kids were sleeping. She looked in the mirror and tried to piece it together: her hair, her clothes, her body – disheveled.
Her sister said, “What happened to you?”
The Memory Returns in Pieces
She remembered being taken. It was dark. She was stripped. She doesn’t remember all the faces. But she remembers Khan. There were slurs. People were laughing, and cursing her. The memory was scattered. She remembered the candles. The chanting. The high priestess – was it James herself? They circled her. Whispered things. Touched her. Groped her.
And then, she said, they laid her down like a “queen” and used her like a “slave.” That was the part she couldn’t understand. The cruelty disguised as ritual.
Her sister looked at her sideways, like, Girl, what are you talking about?
The way they circled her, she said, was like she was dinner, and they were gods.
Discarded
And then they dumped her. She woke up in the street. It came back—bits and pieces. A dark room. Candles. A strange woman, powerful, leading others. They circled her.
DuBose went to the New York Post in 2017. She told them what she remembered. They ran the story. Then, they took it offline. Later, the Post said DuBose hadn’t named anyone. She didn’t know who assaulted her.
But DuBose said she did.
“I recently won my case against the New York Post,” she said, “for defamation of character after they lied, saying I didn’t know who sexually assaulted me—even though we had an exclusive together back in 2017 where I told them the entire story.”
The story never came back online. Letitia James fired her, called her a liar and moved on. Khan stayed at her side. She ran for attorney general and won. Khan managed her campaign.
Doubt and Confirmation
One might dismiss Angel DuBose’s story as a memory blurred by time and trauma. But then, in 2019, another staffer resigned quietly—no press release. There was no internal memo.
“A lot of people left Tish because of Khan,” said one former employee. “He was a bully.”
Yet the office had a process for complaints. They had rules to investigate. Khan oversaw the investigations. But Letitia James stood above it. She was attorney general now. She went after presidents and governors.
The Brooklyn Fundraiser
Then came November 17, 2021. Brooklyn. A fundraiser in a bar.
Sofia Quintanar, age 33, had once been Deputy Press Secretary under James. That meant she’d worked under Ibrahim Khan. She left the office to work for Byron Brown’s unlikely write-in campaign in Buffalo. Brown won.
Now, back in New York, she was looking for her next job. At the fundraiser, Khan wanted to talk. It was loud inside. They stepped out into the cold. He put a hand on her shoulder. Then, without warning, he pushed his tongue into her mouth.
That’s what she alleged in her lawsuit. She pushed him back. “Aren’t you married?” she asked. “Don’t you have kids?”
He came at her again. She backed away and returned inside. Khan followed, sat beside her, and whispered in her ear. She was afraid. Khan could be charming. But he could be cruel. In that moment, he was both.
She told a friend on the way home. She was scared. Khan wasn’t loud like James. But he was just as dangerous.
Quintanar waited almost a year. What finally moved her to act was another woman who said Khan abused her. They filed a complaint together.
On October 2, 2022, Letitia James was told that two women had filed a sexual assault complaint against Khan.
The Politics of Silence
James didn’t fire Khan. It was campaign season. James was facing Republican challenger Michael Henry, a candidate most had dismissed—until he started gaining ground. In fact, James refused to debate him. Henry called her absence what it was: “like not showing up for a job interview.”
But debate would be hard since Khan was the man who had always told James what to say. Firing him would raise questions. And if anyone dug too deep, they’d find the earlier stories. The women who had been pushed aside, moved floors, silenced.
James had managed it before. Quiet transfers. Strategic disavowals. This time, she tried the same thing. There was no press conference. No call for justice. No demand for resignation. Instead, Letitia James told her longtime chief of staff, Ibrahim Khan, to work on her campaign from home. His salary from the state continued. The public was told he had a family emergency—a sick relative.
The ‘Independent’ Investigation
Behind the scenes, James retained a law firm: Littler Mendelson. The firm employed, coincidentally or not, a former assistant attorney general—someone familiar with the rhythms of Albany and the boundaries of discretion. This, James said, was an independent investigation. It was not internal. Not immediate. Never truly public.
There were women who made allegations. However, the findings were delayed. Khan’s accusers didn’t receive an update until after the election.
James won re-election on November 8, 2022. But she had known more than a month before that two women had come forward pointing to the man closest to her—her chief of staff.
A Quiet Departure
The investigation concluded two weeks after the election – on November 22, 2022. Littler Mendelson had substantiated the allegations: unwanted kissing and improper touching. They called it “misconduct.” Not “abuse.” Not “assault.” Just misconduct.
Now that Letitia James had been re-elected, she could let Khan go. But it wouldn’t be a firing—no press conference. No denunciation. Instead, she allowed him to resign.
“I’ve been slated to leave for the private sector,” Khan said as if the private sector had called him. James confirmed his departure. She did not confirm the findings.
Publicly, James told reporters he was “on vacation.” Internally, Khan’s last day was noted as December 31. A paycheck through New Year’s Eve. No shame. Just exit.
The Story Breaks
Only when The New York Times broke the story ten days later did the public learn that the allegations had been substantiated.
James’s office responded with a statement:
“The Office of Attorney General has protocols in place to thoroughly investigate any allegation of misconduct.”
“An independent, impartial investigation was conducted.”
Republicans in Albany demanded answers:
“New Yorkers have a right to know whether the top law enforcement officer in the state suborned sexual harassment, covered it up, or delayed addressing it to win an election.”
The Judiciary Committee opened an inquiry. But it went nowhere.
For Khan, it ended in a resignation. For James, in re-election. For the woman—they learned of Khan’s resignation from the press.
The Lawsuit
Then came the lawsuit. Sofia Quintanar didn’t just name Khan. She named Letitia James. She alleged the Attorney General had shielded him for years.
Quintanar accused Khan of having a “propensity to sexually harass and to commit sexual assaults”—and that James knew.
The Washington Post would later write:
“Had the Times not forced the issue, it’s possible that Khan would have moved on without a public ripple. Just like that, James morphed from a champion of MeToo transparency and consequences into another politician seeking to duck accountability.”
Letitia James had once demanded the resignation of a governor. But there was no press conference when the man was Ibrahim Khan—her chief of staff, gatekeeper, and fixer—no 168-page report.
When she had secured re-election and Khan was gone, James told The New York Times,
“I believe these women. I believe their allegations. And it just, it angers me.”
She believed them in December. Not October. She believed women but never before an election.
