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Angelo Mozilo can finally get on with his life. This month the Justice Department told Mr. Mozilo, the former chief executive of Countrywide Financial, once the nation’s largest subprime mortgage lender, that he was no longer under investigation in connection with civil mortgage fraud. The government’s criminal inquiry into Mr. Mozilo’s role in the financial crisis was dropped previously, so he is now in the clear. At least that’s the view from Washington. On Main Street, where the pain of Countrywide’s reckless lending and abusive foreclosure practices still throbs, it’s safe to say that Mr. Mozilo is still identified as...

U.S. prosecutors have abandoned their case against Angelo Mozilo, the over-tanned character at the center of the risky subprime mortgages that fueled the financial crisis, after a two-year quest to bring a civil suit against him. As Bloomberg reports, The Justice Department has decided not to sue Mozilo, according to people familiar with the matter, ending a decade-long hunt for someone, anyone to jail over what happened.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s strong statements in support of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement raise an interesting question: Does she, then, oppose the preferential treatment her son received at the hand of the financial industry? Pelosi’s son, Paul Pelosi, Jr., was protected from a round of layoffs when he was a mortgage broker for Countrywide, according to “Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon,” a 2011 book by Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Gretchen Morgenson. “Paul Pelosi, Jr., the son of Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker of the House, worked as a mortgage...

The former Countrywide Financial Corp., whose subprime loans helped start the nation's foreclosure crisis, made hundreds of discount loans to buy influence with members of Congress, congressional staff, top government officials and executives of troubled mortgage giant Fannie Mae, according to a House report.

Mozilo's actions in the mortgage meltdown — which led to $67.5-million settlement against him — did not amount to criminal wrongdoing, federal prosecutors have determined.

Mark Malone, a former federal and state prosecutor who spent eight years prosecuting the mob, white collar criminals and political corruption, said: "Mozilo was the boss of bosses of predatory lending. He was the inspiration for MERS, the electronic database used to facilitate much of the fraud surrounding predatory lending, mortgage securitization and fraudulent foreclosure practices. If prosecutors are not going to go after low-hanging fruit like Mozilo, the rest of the bankster bosses can sleep well, assured that their fortunes are secure."

Federal prosecutors have ended a criminal investigation of Countrywide Financial Corp. co-founder Angelo Mozilo, a person close to the investigation said Friday. The federal official told The Associated Press that the probe launched in 2008 into the actions of the former chief executive of the housing giant during the mortgage meltdown has been closed with no indictments. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was never publicly announced, and the Department of Justice as a policy does not announce the closing of investigations. In October, Mozilo agreed to a $67.5 million settlement to avoid civil trial...

U.S. drops criminal probe of former Countrywide chief Angelo MoziloBy E. Scott Reckard, Los Angeles Times February 18, 2011, 4:11 p.m. Federal prosecutors have shelved a criminal investigation of Angelo R. Mozilo after determining that his actions in the mortgage meltdown — which led to $67.5-million settlement against him — did not amount to criminal wrongdoing. As the former chairman of Countrywide Financial Corp., Mozilo helped fuel the boom in risky subprime loans that led to the crippling of the banking industry and the near-collapse of the financial system. A federal grand jury in Los Angeles began probing Mozilo in...

Issa demands details on Countrywide's VIP loan programBy Peter Schroeder - 02/16/11 06:31 PM ET Bank of America will have to turn over all documents and records tied to Countrywide Financial's VIP lending program after House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) issued a subpoena for them Wednesday. Issa announced the far-reaching subpoena, his first as chairman of the panel, and made clear that he wanted to know specifically what public employees or elected officials may have benefited from the program. Issa is looking for all documents about the program, and is particularly interested in what "covered borrowers" were involved...

ABC News has learned that Richard Holbrooke, the US Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, has died. On Friday, Holbrooke was rushed to the hospital with a torn aorta. He went through more than 20 hours of surgery. Earlier this evening, speaking at the US State Department, President Obama sang Holbrooke's praises and called him "a tough son of a gun." Holbrooke, 69, was a former ambassador to the United Nations and served as chief negotiator at the Dayton Peace Accords, which ended the war in Bosnia. The New Yorker's George Packer wrote a nice story about Holbrooke last year,...

LOS ANGELES (TheStreet) -- Countrywide's former Chairman, CEO and co-founder Angelo Mozilo and two other top ranking officials will pay a combined $73 million to settle with the Securities and Exchange Commission for misleading investors as the subprime mortgage crisis emerged. Without admitting any wrongdoing, Mozilo, 71, agreed to repay $45 million in "ill-gotten" gains to settle the SEC's disclosure violation and insider trading charges against him and another $22.5 million in civil penalties, the SEC said on Friday.

Democrats claim their sweeping financial-sector reforms will guard against the kind of problems that triggered the recent economic meltdown. But if they really wanted to do that, they would've focused on how so many US officials were simply . . . bought. Fat chance. Nonetheless, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Governmental Reform, is demanding just such a review -- and, for the sake of the nation, he should get one. Last week, Issa wrote to Alfred Pollard, general counsel to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,...

Washington • Sen. Bob Bennett said Thursday he was unaware that anyone on his staff got special home loans through CountryWide Finance Corp. as alleged in a congressional letter delivered to the Senate Ethics Committee. But the Utah Republican said he would cooperate fully with any ethics investigation that takes place. “I do not have a loan with CountryWide and I do not inquire as to where my staffers go to get their mortgages,” Bennett said in an interview with The Tribune. “I have full faith in the integrity of the staff and the matter is going to be in...

House Democrats Lock GOP Out of Committee Room A bitter divide over Countrywide mortgage scandal. By JAMES FREEMAN Democratic staff for the House oversight committee informed their GOP counterparts today that the majority has changed the locks on the committee's hearing room. While Republicans previously enjoyed their own key to the room, they will now have to request access from Democrats. This followed a bitter partisan argument in which Republicans refused to take down a video from their website that contradicted Dem explanations about a closed-door meeting on the Countrywide VIP loan scandal. As we reported last week, the committee...

If you think moderate Democrats are afraid of voting for ObamaCare, you should see how they react to a potential vote on the Countrywide Financial loan scandal. The House oversight committee was scheduled to meet on Thursday afternoon to mark up several minor pieces of legislation. Days before the meeting, California Republican Darrell Issa notified committee Chairman Edolphus Towns that Mr. Issa would call for a vote to subpoena Countrywide documents from Bank of America, which bought the failed subprime lender last year. Recall that, under the "Friends of Angelo" program, named for former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo, Democratic Senators...

GOSH, what a surprise: A committee of their fellow senators has decided that Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad did nothing unethical when they took out loans from Countrywide Financial on the kind of favorable terms not available to mere mortals without their financial or political standing -- or a personal connection to the head of Countrywide. The very Select Committee on Ethics did recognize that the whole deal looked bad, and gave its colleagues a gentle pat on the wrist for creating "the appearance that you were receiving preferential treatment based on your status as a senator." But in the...

n the middle of a difficult re-election campaign, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., on Friday was cleared by the Senate Ethics Committee from a year-long investigation about whether mortgages he obtained from Countrywide Financial Corp. violated the senate's rules on gifts. The committee, however, did scold the senior lawmaker for not being more careful in his dealings. "While the committee finds no substantial credible evidence as required by committee rules that your Countrywide mortgage violated Senate ethics rules, the committee does believe that you should have exercised more vigilance in your dealings with Countrywide in order to avoid...

A powerful House Democrat who has turned down a Republican's call to subpoena records of a mortgage program at Countrywide Financial Corp. received two home loans from the lender. Some information in the lawmaker's mortgage documents raises the possibility they were made through the program, which provided loans to public figures and other favored borrowers often at lower interest rates or with lower origination fees than were available to the general public. The loans were made to Rep. Edolphus Towns of New York, who heads the House Oversight and Government Reform committee. The panel's ranking Republican, California Rep. Darrell Issa,...

TWO cut-rate mortgages from failed subprime giant Countrywide Financial continue to cost Sen. Christopher Dodd, shredding the Connecticut Democrat's credibility as he faces re-election next fall. This week, news of the secretive Senate Ethics Committee investigation into Dodd's unusual mortgage deals leaked to The Associated Press. AP reported that at least one witness, Robert Feinberg, starkly contradicted Dodd's account of what favors he knew he was getting from a company that, as a member of the Banking Committee, he helps regulate

Corruption: Chris Dodd's teetering re-election chances weren't helped by news that the senator may have lied about not knowing he got preferential treatment as one of Countrywide Financial's Friends of Angelo program.Can you foreclose on a house of cards? Dodd, D-Conn., may soon find out after the official who handled his mortgages testified before both the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee and the Senate Ethics Committee that Dodd did in fact know he got sweetheart deals from a company that went on to lose billions of dollars on home loans to credit-strapped borrowers. As the No. 1 recipient of...