Posted on 06/06/2009 6:10:22 AM PDT by FromLori
The Securites Exchange Commission (SEC) formally charged former Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo Mozilo and two other company executives with civil fraud.
The SEC also charged Mozilo with illegal insider trading, an agency spokesman said Thursday. Civil fraud charges also were filed against Countrywide's former Chief Operating Officer David Sambol and ex-Chief Financial Officer Eric Sieracki.
Countrywide Financial, the California-based mortgage lender, was a key component to the subprime mortgage crisis in 2007, which was the beginning of the financial decline and current recession in the U.S.
Mozilo is the most high-profile individual to face formal charges from the federal government in the aftermath of the crisis. He has denied any wrongdoing. His attorney did not immediately return an e-mail message by Associated Press for comment Thursday afternoon.
Mozilo co-founded Countrywide Financial and was at its helm as it became one of the country's most successful mortgage lenders. However, after the mortgage collapse, Countrywide was forced to cut thousands of jobs and their stock price plummeted. They were bought by Bank of America in 2007 for $2.5 billion.
Prior to the company's collapse, Mozilo sold $130 million in Countrywide shares in a pre-established 105b-1 trading plan, which allows a company insider to set up a program in advance for such transactions and proceed with them even if he or she comes into possession of significant nonpublic information.
Looks like Dodd and Fwank found a patsy.
Yark!
This man PUMPED AND DUMPED to the tune of $1/2 a BILLION, flagrantly and blantantly in front of cameras and the world and it took the SEC what? 2 or 3 years to finally charge him?
If anyone thinks Wall Street and Foreign Interests do not own this government they are fools.
Anyone else here notice this TOAD’S striking resemblance to a Ferrangi?
Any evidence that he “defrauded” shaeeholders any more than any other CEO?
All major banks eased credit during that period. All banks knew that Option ARMs were risky. Nobody knew how fast scum borrowers would default when house prices declined.
So it Mozillo’s fault that scum speculators bid houses through the roof and defaulted at their first opportunity?
Scapegoat for government. Pure and simple and an incompetent Federal Reserve and S.E.C.
Pure witchhunt.
I don't think that's what he was charged with.
Hope you recover from the fall shortly. Head trauma is a really bad thing.
Wow, not only double vowels, but double o’s Even looks like a goombah.
It is not an indictment, it is a civil fraud suit. Someone does not want to go the distance on this one. He will end up paying a fine and if he keeps his mouth shut will avoid a follow on criminal charge. Generally though, a civil suit does not precede a criminal filing so the SEC is showing its hand here.
I would love to see a RICO charge for him and his company and co defendents Frank, Dodd et al. Of course that will never happen as the government still has yet to try Jefferson the guy with the cold cash in the frig who just thumbed his nose at all. After all, the king is above it all so why should I expect anything different.
But take heart, Holter just dropped some surveillance on Muslim militants by the FBI and also dropped an election fraud issue against the Black Panters as it was “diminimus”.
Vince
It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder. - Frederic Bastiat 1801-1850
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