NY AG candidate Saritha Komatireddy says Medicaid fraud recoveries fell sharply under Letitia James

Republican attorney general candidate Saritha Komatireddy has made Medicaid fraud enforcement a centerpiece of her campaign against incumbent Attorney General Letitia James, pointing to annual report data showing fraud recoveries fell from $168 million in James's first year in office, 2019, to $31 million in 2024, while the state's spending on the fraud recovery program rose from about $45 million in fiscal 2020 to $70 million in 2025.

Komatireddy, who spent more than a decade as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York and later served as chief of staff at the Drug Enforcement Administration, framed the decline in recoveries as a pattern predating James. She said attorneys general under Eliot Spitzer, Andrew Cuomo, and Eric Schneiderman routinely posted recoveries of $200 million to $300 million or more per year, with Cuomo's office recovering more than $660 million in his first three years and Schneiderman's office recovering more than $335 million in 2012 alone.

"When Tish James comes into office, it goes down to $20 to $30 million per year," Komatireddy said in an interview with Fox News Digital. "According to her own year-end reports, she's just decided not to do that part of the job." She also said criminal conviction totals dropped significantly, describing one year in which the office secured eight criminal convictions compared to what she described as roughly 100 per year in prior administrations.