Bank of America Corp.’s Countrywide unit was found liable for defrauding Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac by selling them thousands of defective loans. The case was the first brought by the U.S. against a bank over defective mortgages to go to trial.The trial took four weeks.
A federal jury in New York today also found former Countrywide Financial Corp. executive Rebecca Mairone liable for defrauding the U.S. Mairone was the only individual named as a defendant in the government’s lawsuit.
The jury was out for five hours. Which means besides choosing a foreman and ordering in lunch, they probably deliberated for all of forty-five minutes, if even that long.
Now, can we get going with the kind of trials where the guilty get to go live in Bernie Madoff's cellblock? Can someone please take a cattle prod to Holder's nuts and get him moving?
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should never have been created--this sort of fraud was inevitable, when the Government assumes the risk but allows corporations to take most of the reward. (The same applies to guaranteed student loans, with similar results)
ReplyDeleteAnd it was the fault of the banks that Willie Sutton robbed them?
ReplyDeleteYou realize that would require one to stick the prod in Tim Geithner's pants pocket.
ReplyDeleteThis is closer to "the bank didn't bother locking the vault, oops, your money was stolen".
ReplyDeleteI heard about funny business in the mortgage industry from entry-level retail brokers that I know personally years before the crisis hit--particularly "stated income" mortgages where for a slightly higher interest rate nobody would verify the ability of the borrower to pay the loan back. Works fine so long as prices are rising fast enough to cover defaults. Since easy credit pushes prices upwards it was self sustaining...for a while.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had a fiduciary duty to at least audit what they were buying--and to reject loans that didn't meet standards.
They failed. They left the vault door unlocked. Doesn't excuse the thieves, but it should not be surprising that the thieves showed up--and the ones who were that negligent don't deserve to be bailed out.