Ex-Countrywide Exec Blows The Lid Off The Systemic Fraud At The Company

[FarCenter]

Source: Business Insider

Eileen Foster, a former senior executive at Countrywide Financial, told CBS's "60 Minutes" Steve Kroft that mortgage fraud was a way of business.

"From what I saw, the types of things I saw, it was — it appeared systemic. It, it wasn't just one individual or two or three individuals, it was branches of individuals, it was regions of individuals," she told Kroft.

Foster, an ex-senior vice president at the mortgage lender tasked with monitoring and investigating possible fraud, said she found evidence of widespread mortgage fraud during an investigation in Boston.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/countrywide-mortgage-fraud-60-minutes-2011-12

---

Why isn't Angelo Mozilo in prison?

[dmosh42]

1. Can't expect help from DOJ-they only do pot smokers from Calif.!

[russspeakeasy]

6. DOJ. "Doing Our Job" Protecting our friends in high places.

By diverting your attention to medical mj and abuse of prescription drugs.

[OnyxCollie]

18. Protecting corporate criminals and war criminals since Jan. 2001.

[RKP5637]

47. Yep, they'll point to DOJ after medical pot users and say see how well

we are doing our job protecting the US from these horrendous pot smoking medical use criminals.

[DCKit]

2. "Why isn't Angelo Mozilo in prison?"

Because Angelo cut a deal and paid a fine of 10% of his fortune - $65 million, from what I remember.

[FarCenter]

3. Plus, too many politicians on his "Friends of Mozilo" list getting cheap mortgages

Chris Dodd, IIRC, for one.

But I'm sure that Angelo took care of friends in both parties.

[banned from Kos]

5. Are you claiming that Dodd intervened in Mozilo's trial?

That would be quite a claim.

[FarCenter]

8. There was no trial

Lending Magnate Settles Fraud Case

Angelo R. Mozilo, the former chief executive of Countrywide Financial, once the nation’s largest mortgage lender, agreed to pay $67.5 million on Friday to settle a civil fraud case brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission last year.
...
The deal came just four days before a jury trial was scheduled to begin in Los Angeles. David Sambol, the former president of Countrywide, and Eric Sieracki, the former chief financial officer, were also sued by the S.E.C. Both men settled their cases Friday as well; Mr. Sambol agreed to pay $5.52 million and Mr. Sieracki consented to $130,000. Mr. Sambol also is barred for three years from serving at a public company.
...
The terms of the settlements were approved by John F. Walter, the federal judge overseeing the case in California’s central district court. After reading the details of the settlement, Mr. Walter said, “I would have been interested to see what a jury would have decided. Because of the settlement, as is often the case, we’ll never know.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/16/business/16countrywide.html?pagewanted=all

---

Judge Walter apparently was not curious enough to reject the settlement of the SEC action.

[banned from Kos]

12. But how did Dodd help Mozilo?

There was an investigation and case.

The Senate looked into Dodd and Countrywide and determined that a slightly lower interest rate was not a violation of ethics.

[JackRiddler]

7. How extensive was the immunity? Surely with a crime complex on this scale...

An enterprising prosecutor can still find some charge with which to nail this perp?

Yeah, I know: As if.

[Enthusiast]

27. + a brazillion!

[dixiegrrrrl]

49. His deal was with SEC, which does not do criminal, only civil charges.

The real question is why none of the banksters have ever been charged with criminal fraud, or with RICO, or any of a dozen criminal state and federal law violations.
And the only answer seems to be: everyone has been paid off.

[banned from Kos]

4. The state AG's are at fault if anyone is. Mortgage origination law varies by state.

For Holder to get involved a federal law would have to be violated.

In the past, state AG's have been successful in predatory loan suits.

[FarCenter]

9. It is not predatory lending; it is outright fraud

Fabricating signatures on loan application documents, for example, is fraud. Claiming that a mortgage is for a principle residence when it is for a rental is fraud.

How are the AGs of CA, NV, AZ, FL and MI doing?

Those are the states with the highest rates of foreclosures.

[russspeakeasy]

10. "federal law would have to be violated" ?

"state AG"s have been successful in predatory loan suits".?
Do you believe federal laws haven't been violated ? Other than a few individual predatory loan suits, how have state AG"s been successful ?
They fined some people; they put a few mtg originators in jail in Florida. That's their track record. 4 wins, 1023 losses.
Eric Holder will garner some hugh speaking fees after his term and never look back. He and Timmy can get together and chuck each other in the ribs and laugh about how "they love it when a plan works out."

[Fuddnik]

13. RICO

Continuing Criminal Enterprise.
Conspiracy.
All sorts of federal laws..

[Hassin Bin Sober]

30. Wire fraud. Falsifying applications on government backed (FHA, VA, USDA etc.) loans etc.

This is federal issue.

[MFrohike]

39. Well,

this does appear to be one of the largest cases of mail and wire fraud in history. Last I checked, those are fully within the scope of DOJ to investigate and prosecute.

There are likely other bases of federal jurisdiction as well, but those two come very quickly to mind.

[rhett o rick]

53. Hello, the federal government can get involved in just about anything they want.

I am sure interstate commerce was affected somehow.

If the DOJ can go after medical marijuana dispensers, they sure as hell can find a way to handle fraud.

[No Elephants]

54. The real fraud was probably in the sale of the lousy mortgages.

[ooglymoogly]

60. What a load

Yeah, its only medical pot where the state/fed line is breached. After all the DOJ is not interested in political shenanigans haha...unless it bothers, by even a hair, the bottom line of their bosses, the leeches in the drug and banking cartels, keeping them with the most jugulars to sink their fangs into and keeping them supplied with the highest tsunami of the blood of this nation.

DOJ as far as "the law" is concerned is a diabolic joke.

To be fair they need to be renamed; DORRP as in Department Of Rethug Rackets Protection.

[Festivito]

11. Criminal activity there? Yes. Give me(60 minutes) the names? No. Give names to a grand jury? Yes!

18?-page settlement insuring her silence, she would not sign.

Had to wait years to get her money through the slow courts. Fair and square.

She said she'd talk to the grand jury. If she suddenly commits suicide, all hell should break loose folks.

ADDING: They fired her just days before the government started to question "employees" of which, she would not be there when DOJ called. DOJ never contacted her.

She was the goto person for any alleged corruption employees wanted to report. They uppity-ups kept those reports from coming to her.

[Plucketeer]

19. She got canned JUST before the investigators were to

question her. So what I don't understand is WHY they couldn't have interrogated her ANYWAYS????? Would her answers be any less valid as an EX-Employee???

[Hotler]

14. k&r n/t

[sarcasmo]

15. Criminals.

[Xtraneous]

16. Get with the program. That's not the right question...

What does OWS want? The MSM is illegitimate.

[JJW]

17. The fraud starts in both parties that are corrupt

You chose between two approved criminals, either democrat or republican. They were bought and are later bribed with corporate money. SCOTUS claims corporations have person-hood and their bribes to elected officials are a form of free speech allowed and protected by the Constitution. But of course it was the SCOTUS that stole the election in 2000 by refusing to count the votes. So the system is broken and electing either Democrat or Republican does nothing.

[Enthusiast]

28. Plus one! nt

[midnight]

20. K&R for answers, and the best creative excuses...

[DeSwiss]

21. ''Why isn't Angelo Mozilo in prison?''

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=640354&mesg_id=640368">THE ANSWER


- K&R

[defendandprotect]

22. What difference between today's capitalism and the Soprano's. .... ????

Enron/Soprano's -- !!

[dmosh42]

57. If you remember John Gotti, who they claimed was taking in 20 million a year...

and around the same time of the S&L scandal, some broker by the name of Milliken walked away after paying a 400 million dollar fine! His pictures showed him smiling after that. So, Mafia is small potatoes compared to these crooks!

[Scruffy1]

23. Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank....

Give a man a bank and he can rob the world.

[taught_me_patience]

24. This means nothing - Calling her a "senior executive" is completely off base

This lady was an SVP... nothing at Countrywide at that time. Seriously... 25% of employees were "SVP" and above. She's a low level lackey that was paid to look the other way.

[EFerrari]

25. K&R And fuck the banksters.

[Enthusiast]

26. There was fraud in all these companies, not just Countrywide.

And those that engaged in the fraud are awash in cash in overseas bank accounts. Oh the joy of "looking forward".

[Hassin Bin Sober]

32. You are correct. Countrywide WAS better at it though.....

.....with their "Fast and Easy" loan - that's really what they called it. It ENCOURAGED cheating and the real hard-core cheaters cheated A LOT.

I am in the business.

We had a loan officer - a $30 million dollar producer - leave us to go to Wells Fargo. She was fired from Well Fargo for fraud (placing a customer on her own account to show assets). She left Wells and went to Countrywide and increased her business to $100 million/year production.... all with the help of "Fast and Easy."......

People with no jobs were given jobs.
People with no assets were given assets on paper.
Condo association approvals were falsified.
Realtors were buying several "owner occupied" units in the same development.
Appraisals were, at the minimum, coerced and, at worse, outright doctored.

She was so big, they gave her a branch. She was the branch. They gave her a crew of underwriters who worked only for her.

By the time they finally fired her, she left them with literally ROOMS full of fraudulent loans to sift through and try and, I assume, package up and sell. I knew one of the people left to sort out her mess.

The FBI spoke with her. To no avail I guess as you can see her mug weekly in the local real estate magazine. Last I saw her mug, she was at National City (they are a "bank" so she can work unlicensed in Illinois).

[Enthusiast]

33. Unbelievable. nt

[AnneD]

29. I'll never forget the first time I saw Mozillo....

It was on Wall Street week with Maria (Knee Pads) Bartiromo. I took one look at the guy listened to him for a few minutes and said to folks on the Stock Watch Thread that the guy was a crook and CountryWide was going down weeks before it did. I based my prediction on several facts....

1) The guy was too tanned. At first that might sound silly, but mortgages involve banks and accountants-hardly the party boys and girls of the business world. And if you are really taking care of business, you will be in the office. That much of a tan speaks of someone that does deals on the golf course (less documentation ie evidence).

2) He was rationalizing the selling of his own company stock, hiding behind his family. A man that makes the salary he was and cannot send his kids to college either can't budget for shit and and should not be President of a company or is lying. He wanted to get while the getting was good. He was making enough to send every one of his kids to medical school at an Ivy League school.

3)He just stuck me as a sleazy type that gives the Mafia a bad name. He looked like a used car salesman in a well tailored suit.


And this was before the "official" investigation.

All I can say is "I'm shocked, shocked to find gambling going on." :eyes:

[chervilant]

41. Bravo!

You certainly nailed Mozilo!

I distinctly remember the first time I saw the grotesquely-tanned Mozilo addressing a sizable contingent of his 'loyal minions' and throwing out the statistic that "20% of high risk loans end in foreclosure." Mozilo then asserted, "we are looking at this statistic all wrong" --pausing for dramatic effect-- "This means that 80% of high risk loans (emphasis his) are successful." Mozilo informed us that Countrywide intended to tap into this vast pool of potential borrowers--what he called the 'historically disenfranchised' borrowers--and went on to describe the new sub-prime products Countrywide was introducing to the public.

This was all smoke and mirrors. Every GOOD lender knows that credit-worthiness is the cornerstone of mortgage underwriting. But, it didn't take long for savvy loan officers to understand that anyone could be made 'eligible' for a home loan.

I had clients who wanted to 'buy' houses that were far outside their means, and they would NOT listen to my adjurations about being 'one paycheck away from financial catastrophe.' I realize now that these poor people just shopped around for a loan officer who would write the loan they wanted.

I could go on for days about how we were 'encouraged' to market the sub-primes. Of course, the big five were paying loan officers much higher commissions on the sub-primes, a fact that my manager threw in my face each time he berated me for not marketing those vile pieces of corporatist crap.

Most loan officers were totally on board the sub-prime bandwagon from the get go. Indeed, if I had been given my promotion when it was promised --in the spring of the first "year of the sub-primes"--I would have made a minimum of $40,000/month during those glory days, before I understood what these loans really represented. I was quite naive then. But, it didn't take me long to get the bigger picture. I now realize how lucky I was not to market OR write sub-prime loans. (I suspect that a few of my peers had similar experiences.)

I left (fortuitously) right before the internal auditors (Feds?) executed an early morning raid on our Galleria-area high-rise offices, re-keyed the locks, and confiscated all the files and computers. I had lunch with our admin one last time after that, but I don't know the legal outcome for my manager and his hotshot loan officers. Rumor has it they were writing homestead mortgages for a group of California real estate investors--a serious infraction both federally and internally.

[AnneD]

61. We hail from the same city....

I survived the Savings and Loan scandal, RE bust (remember baloon mortgages),and oil bust that hit Houston hard in the 80's.

I saw the housing bubble and stock run up in 2006. Got out of the market and told hubby we would continue to rent-even though we were better qualified than most. Hubby fussed but he doesn't fuss too loud any more.

Even though we qualify, I don't think there is true discovery of housing prices yet, even in Houston (I go to the Sheriff's auctions).

I am glad you stuck with your principles. You sleep better at night and you really do get ahead in the long run.

Kudos to ya kid.

[chervilant]

62. Thanks, AnneD

Indeed, I do sleep better at night. That is exactly what I told my manager.

Honestly, the loans I wrote that really torqued him were the FHA and VHA loans I negotiated that allowed my borrowers to close for less than $500 out-of-pocket. I think my commission on those loans was less the $300. In all the instances where I wrote such loans, I was dealing with vets or teachers, and they really had limited resources. He absolutely berated me for 'wasting' my time and his.

[AnneD]

63. Speaking as a School Nurse...

and a veteran ....thanks:loveya:

[chervilant]

66. You are

so very welcome. :) I've been an advocate for survivors of relationship violence for better than thirty years. My advocacy informs and drives everything else I do. Hence, I was all about getting deserving people into homes--which is precisely what that skank Mozilo alleged he was doing!

[indepat]

31. Prison isn't for the major fraudsters in the corporate hierarchy: prison is for the little people:

some solace can be taken in that Mozila reportedly did pay a civil fine amounting to very small portion of the money he had gotten from Countrywide in the previous decade. :patriot:

[lsewpershad]

34. Maybe

because we don't look backward..hehe

[gtar100]

35. More evidence that Americans hate Americans.

Always in competition with one another, willing to take from others without regard to consequence. Because our real religion is money.

[mistertrickster]

36. Anybody have a link to Bush's infamous "let corporations police themselves"?

I know that was his attitude, but I can't find a direct quote of him saying so . . .

[gratuitous]

37. Isn't it just horrible what all those unmoneyed people forced Countrywide to do?

It's just terrible that all those Countrywide executives were forced to lend money to poor people against their will because of a late 1970s change in federal mortgage law. It took 30 years, but the damage was finally done, and the executives at Countrywide only became multi-millionaires from pocketing all those fees and stuff. And now look at the mess the mortgage market is in! Lucky for those Countrywide people they were able to make small fortunes that will tide them over for a while.

I wonder if Countrywide's former executives need a bailout?

[No Elephants]

38. Even well before the 2008 crash, everyone knew Countrywide was as shady as thy come.

I googled them once because a friend said they had offered him a job and we decided he should stay far, far away.

So, it was public knowledge. No one did anything, though.

While I am on the subject, "thanks" Ms. Foster, for "blowing the lid off Countryside" years and years too late.

[lib2DaBone]

40. DOJ is busy busting 78 year old cancer patients for pot....

Can't expect them to tareget the criminals.

The DOJ is busy shipping guns to Mexico and the CONgress is busy passing laws that says they can put you in a millitary prison with no trial.

"And life goes on.. no one notices.. no one seems to care..." (George Carlin)

[citizen blues]

42. I worked in the consumer finance division of citigroup

And we all knew how shady Countrywide was. They were the worst! It even shocked us in subprime lending the absolute garbage loans they were booking. And Washington Mutual was right behind them in the fraud division. I spoke to multiple WAMU mortgage customers who had no f***ing clue what they had just signed. Often they thought it was something completely different than what it was. Then Wells Fargo was the king of foreclosures as they denied, denied and denied their customers government-mandated HAMP modifications with no explanation to the customer as to why they supposedly didn't qualify. They would tie up their customers in red tape, put them through this ridiculously arduous modification process multiple times simply let the clock run out, so they could foreclose and evict.

I was lucky enough to be fired during a downsizing frenzy, but there isn't any of these bankster bastards who don't deserve to be locked up for a hell of a long time!!!!

[On the Road]

43. If the Feds or the States are Not Bringing Suit,

I am wondering if there are any other individuals or organizations that would have standing to bring suit. I think a lot of these bad mortgages were sold into the secondary market -- perhaps FMNA, FRMC, or large investors in some of the downstream securities could sue.

No matter how much it is necessary to prevent BAC from collapsing, this has to be prosecuted for the rule of law to have any force going forward.

[Celebration]

44. eh, no worries on that

There are tons of lawsuits out there.

But NO CRIMINAL PROSECUTIONS!

[Kablooie]

45. I always thought faking signatures on legal documents would land you in jail. Silly me.

[bluesbassman]

46. Two branches in the Bay Area were shut down in '07 - found light tables in the back.

To be clear, the ONLY reason you'd find a light table in a mortgage office is that it's been used to forge signatures.

There were other fraudulent activities going on too, but a putting a light table in an office is pretty blatant. Branch managers heads were the only ones that rolled as far as I know. The regional was transferred!

Both of those branches reopened within a couple of months. Guess that gave the corporate "cleaners" enough time to do their thing.

[BootinUp]

48. not really breaking news though.

It has been clear what happened for a long time. I can't even work up the interest to read the article, truth be told.

[WillyT]

50. HUGE K & R !!!

:kick:

[fasttense]

51. Where to begin?

The system is so corrupted I find this as no surprise.

DOJ is failing miserably in its job to protect citizens from criminals.

Our banking system is nothing more than one big con and we the working class are the marks. And our government is in on the con from the Dancing Supremes, to the Fed to the DOJ and the president.

Why is Mozilo NOT in jail? Because our government is run on the whims of rich men and NOT on the rule of law.

[No Elephants]

55. It's not only D of J. The SEC is a miserable failute anymore as well.

Sadly, most of our federal agencies are totally in the pockets of those whom they are supposed to regulate, from Monsanto to Madoff.

Both Parties do very well at that.

[newspeak]

64. yeah, it seems like the SEC is there to PROTECT

the influential. Look what happened with little boot's alleged insider trading? Daddy's friend was head of the board at the time. How many investors did little boot's harm while he made hundreds of thousands of dollars? Oh, but look over there, there's martha stewart.

[madrchsod]

52. during the s&l scandal people went to jail

i`m an old guy so refresh my memory....under what president did those prosecutions take place?

[No Elephants]

56. Dunno, but here is an interesting article comparising the lack of federal prosecutions now

with the multitude of federal prosecutions then.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/business/14prosecute.html?pagewanted=all

If you google the names of some cited in the article as having been prosecuted, you may get the answer to your question.

[wordpix]

59. our fed gov is breaking down---it's not just the military that's contracting, it's fed agencies, too

The fed gov. is moving to contracted employment instead of employing fed workers. Contractors are occupying fed offices in DC in ever greater numbers---my friend works for a contractor at the State Dept, for example. No wonder there are few prosecutions. The contractors make a bundle and supply as few workers as possible to do the jobs, at low wages.

[newspeak]

65. I believe the junk bond king, michael milken

got a light sentence from the judge, because he was so talented and that we need talented guys like mike.:puke: I have a great book called "the predator's ball" about that time. And it is very enlightening, why we are in this mess today. Before mike's junk bonds, investors had to put real assets on the line-then the junk bonds-it made it easier for investors to raid healthy american companies-raiding companies like simplicity patterns, revlon and they even attempted a raid on disney. They raided companies that were in the black, stripped them of the wealth and then sold them to the highest,some foreign bidders. Those employees in the companies, some generational, lost their decent jobs and their pensions. It was a shark frenzied greed fest. Michael milkin and his ilk have greatly aided in the meltdown of responsible corporations and labor in this country. And now, i believe mike and neil * (s&l theft, since he can no longer work in the banking industry) are in the education industry. Both, have been more rewarded for their corruption, while harming millions of people.

[newspeak]

58. this morning on the news in las vegas

they are investigating these companies for forging signatures on foreclosure papers. Nevada has one of the highest foreclosure numbers. Between wall street, bankers, and other lending agencies, no wonder we're in an economic meltdown-the corruption is staggering.