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During the housing boom, the subprime industry succeeded at more than just writing mortgages. It also shot down efforts by some states to curtail risky lending to borrowers with spotty credit. Ameriquest Mortgage Co., until recently one of the nation's largest subprime lenders, was at the center of those battles. Working with a husband-and-wife team of Washington lobbyists, it handed out more than $20 million in political donations and played a big role in persuading legislators in New Jersey and Georgia to relax tough new laws. Those victories, in turn, helped blunt efforts by other states to crack down on...

The family of Ameriquest Mortgage founder Roland Arnall says he has died at UCLA Medical Center. He was 68. The billionaire helped create and later emerged as a symbol of the struggling sub-prime mortgage industry. A family statement said Arnall died Monday morning but did not give the cause of death. Arnall was appointed ambassador to the Netherlands in March 2006 after an approval process that was slowed by unsettled issues regarding Ameriquest. the California-based lending company he founded in 1979. A major Republican financier, Arnall's fortune was estimated at $1.5 billion by Forbes magazine last year.

Godfathers of subprimeEstablished in 1979 by Roland Arnall, Long Beach Savings grew rapidly after Wall Street opened the credit tap. It moved to Orange in 1991 and gave up its banking license in 1994, converting to a pure mortgage company.In 1997, Long Beach Savings split into privately-held Ameriquest and a publicly traded subsidiary, which sold for $350 million in 1999 to become the subprime arm of Washington Mutual Inc.Other companies were started by executives who learned the ropes at Long Beach Savings: ResMae Mortgage Corp. in Brea in 2001 and Encore Credit Corp. in Irvine in 2002.  Godfathers of subprimeEstablished...

The Hague - The United States ambassador to the Netherlands, Roland Arnall, is resigning. He says he wants to return to the US as quickly as possible because his son is seriously ill. Mr Arnall has been ambassador to The Hague since March 2006. His appointment generated a great deal of controversy. The US Senate initially refused to approve his nomination because his Ameriquest Mortgage Company, which specialised in making high-cost loans to people with low incomes, was being investigated for defrauding consumers. The nomination was approved after the company reached a 220 million euro settlement. Mr Arnall, who is...

LOS ANGELES (AP) --- Ameriquest Mortgage Co., once the nation's largest subprime lender, will close with barely a whimper, after the other assets of its parent company were sold Friday to Citigroup Inc. Ameriquest, which saw its fortunes soar during the housing boom by lending to people with less than stellar credit, is the latest victim of a mortgage crisis that has left bankrupt companies and cash-strapped borrowers in its wake. Along with shuttering Ameriquest, Orange-based ACC Capital Holdings also said it was selling its wholesale mortgage origination operation and a mortgage servicing business to Citigroup for an undisclosed sum....

Citigroup Inc. bolstered the finances of the Ameriquest companies Wednesday by providing new funds, setting up a major credit line and getting an option to buy some operations of the specialist in high-cost mortgages to high-risk buyers. Los Angeles billionaire Roland E. Arnall, Ameriquest's principal owner and the U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands, also will provide a cash infusion, the Orange-based sub-prime lending company said. It didn't specify how much new capital would flow into the businesses. Citigroup also would become the chief "warehouse" lender for the operations, providing credit to fund loans and hold them until they are packaged...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger can't say his public works bond proposals aren't getting thorough consideration by the Legislature. Whether he'll like the final product is another question. Legislative committees held nine hearings last week on various aspects of Schwarzenegger's plan, which includes selling $68 billion in bonds to help pay for transportation improvements, water and flood control projects, new schools, courthouses and certain other facilities. There are another 11 hearings scheduled this week, including the first meeting of a two-house conference committee that will try to put together a bond package for voters to consider, possibly in the...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Ameriquest Mortgage Co. said on Monday it agreed to pay $325 million in the second largest U.S. consumer lending settlement to clear up claims that its lending practices abused customers in 49 U.S. states. A two-year investigation found that salespeople at the company concealed interest rate and loan costs, pressured appraisers to inflate values of borrowers' homes, and used other high-pressure tactics to close deals, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's office said in a statement on Monday. The agreement requires Ameriquest, one of the largest U.S. mortgage lenders to people with poor credit, to pay...

The head of the Mexican American Political Assn. on Tuesday called on Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to drop support of an ambassadorship for an owner of Ameriquest and urged him not to use the mortgage company's jet again. --snip-- In a letter to the mayor, MAPA National President Nativo Lopez said his group was "taken aback" by an article in The Times on Tuesday that detailed Villaraigosa's use of the Ameriquest jet and his letter of support to the Senate for the nomination of Ameriquest principal owner Roland E. Arnall as ambassador to the Netherlands. Lopez said his organization...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A judge refused a request by Ameriquest Mortgage Co. founder Roland Arnall to limit his ex-wife's look into his net worth as part of her attempt to get a higher divorce settlement. Sally Arnall's attorney, Vicki Greene, asked Superior Court Judge Richard E. Denner to approve a broad investigation into the finances of Arnall, who is President Bush's nominee to be U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands. "We want to assess all the assets that were not disclosed or undervalued," Greene said. But Leonard J. Meyberg Jr., lawyer for the Ameriquest founder, told the judge Wednesday that...

A giant Orange County mortgage company accused of duping low-income homeowners has pumped more than $7 million into California politics since 2002, including contributions to Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Democratic Attorney General Bill Lockyer and dozens of other state legislators, members of Congress and political committees. Ameriquest's top executive, Roland Arnall, also has been one of President Bush's top fundraisers, generating $12 million for the president's political efforts during the past four years. On July 28, Bush nominated Arnall, a billionaire who was ranked No. 106 in the 2004 Forbes magazine list of the wealthiest Americans, as ambassador to the...

President Bush's controversial nominee for ambassador to the Netherlands, Ameriquest Capital founder Roland Arnall, might be regretting his company's high-profile sponsorship of the Rolling Stones' U.S. concert tour. Arnall's mortgage company is spending millions of dollars to tout the Stones tour and Ameriquest's sweepstakes for travel, lodging and concert seats - never mind that Mick Jagger is releasing a tune apparently attacking Arnall's patrons in the Bush administration. The lyrics of "Sweet Neo Con" include such broadsides as: "Democracy's our style/ Unless you are against us/ Then it's prison without trial./ But one thing that is certain/ Life is good...