Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez changes campaign bio after truth is revealed about where she grew up

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the self-declared "democratic-socialist" from the Bronx, is accused of changing her biography on her campaign website days after she was criticized for misleading voters about where she grew up.

Ocasio-Cortez received national acclaim after she defeated 10-term congressman Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.) in the New York Democratic primary last month. She will be running as the Democratic candidate for New York's 14th congressional district this November and is almost guaranteed to win.

What are the details?

As the Journal News noted, Ocasio-Cortez's campaign biography originally stated: "She ended up attending public school 40 minutes north in Yorktown, and much of her life was defined by the 40-minute commute between school and her family in the Bronx."

However, the sentence was rather misleading. It was later revealed that Ocasio-Cortez's "girl from the Bronx" moniker was dishonest because her family moved away from New York City when she was 5 years old. They moved about an hour north to the ritzy suburb of Yorktown Heights in Westchester County, one of the wealthiest counties in the U.S.

The website biography has since been updated, but it still doesn't explicitly state that Ocasio-Cortez's move to Westchester County was permanent.

"She ended up attending public school in Yorktown — 40 minutes north of her birthplace. As a result, much of her early life was spent in transit between her tight-knit extended family in the Bronx and her daily student life" the bio now reads.

According to the Journal News, records indicate Ocasio-Cortez lived with her mother and brother in their Yorktown Heights home until 2016. From the report:

Ocasio-Cortez was 2 years old when her father, Sergio Ocasio-Roman, bought a modest home in Yorktown for $150,000. The family lived in the Parkchester section of the Bronx at the time and moved to the house in Yorktown a few years later.

Her father died in September 2008, just as she was starting her sophomore year at Boston University. The house was deeded to her mother, the executor of her father’s will, in 2012.

Westchester County land records show that Ocasio-Cortez was living there with her mother and brother in 2016 when they sold the home for $355,000.

Ocasio-Cortez has since moved back to the same Parkchester neighborhood in the Bronx where she was born.

Has Ocasio-Cortez responded to the criticism?

Yes, in response to a tweet from Newsmax TV host John Cardillo.

This is the Yorktown Heights (very nice area) home @Ocasio2018 grew up in before going off to Ivy League Brown University.

A far cry from the Bronx hood upbringing she’s selling. pic.twitter.com/xyOtZzVJII

— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) July 1, 2018

Ocasio-Cortez responded:

Hey John,

1. I didn’t go to Brown or the Ivy League. I went to BU. Try Google.

2. It is nice. Growing up, it was a good town for working people. My mom scrubbed toilets so I could live here & I grew up seeing how the zip code one is born in determines much of their opportunity.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) July 1, 2018

3. Your attempt to strip me of my family, my story, my home, and my identity is exemplary of how scared you are of the power of all four of those things.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) July 1, 2018