No criminal charges. Yet. So don't get too excited.
But it's a start.
Orange One - you're toast. You f*cked America. You f*cked the world. All for a buck.
And now, soon, you'll be f*cked too.
Hope it was worth it.
Orange scum.
You're going down.
CNBC: SEC to Charge Ex-Countrywide CEO
The SEC will charge Angelo Mozilo, former chairman and CEO of Countrywide Financial, with insider trading, according to people familiar with the situation.
The SEC will also charge the company's former chief operating officer, David Sambol, and former financial chief, Eric Sieracki, with securities fraud for failing to disclose the firm's relaxed lending standards in its 2006 annual report.
The charges, which are expected to be announced by the SEC later today, will not be accompanied by any criminal indictments.
Mozilo sold hundreds of millions in Countrywide stock in late 2006 and 2007 and is accused of remaining publicly upbeat about his company's prospects during a period when he knew things weren't going well for the firm.
Countrywide became the nation's largest single home lender during the housing boom and was acquired by Bank of America after much of its business deteriorated.
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74 comments:
What about his younger brother?
oh, i hope he starts singing to save his ass.
What took them so long?
This is a no brainer!
Maybe this could lead to someone or something bigger than the tan one.
The whole real estate complex should be exposed for stealing American citizens money.
okay, so how can they get him indicted on criminal charges? Seriously, what would get him in prison for a very long time? can they prove criminal activity? I know he is a criminal but can it be proved? I really want someone to explain to me how they can prove it...
Queefirino,
You can charge me all you want. No way you EVER get a conviction. I am BULLETPROOF.
Your Pal,
Orangelo
I think about all the posts on this garbage over the past four years
I think about the letters to the SEC and Congress
I think about the millions of lives that have been ruined, the trillions and trillions in damage.
I think about the fact that we knew what was going on, we tried to inform the proper authorities, and we were ignored. For years.
And then we have today.
Finally.
One thing that makes me happy is when you google "Angelo Mozilo Scum", we're right there. Even if we couldn't send him to jail, at least we could help destroy his reputation.
He thought he could hide. He thought he could get away with his evil deeds.
Justice will be served. Late. But it will be served.
I hope he doesn't off himself tonight. I want his orange ass in jail.
Really? This is no joke?!
BG - it's called mortgage fraud. It's illegal in America. And it was rampant, known and encouraged at Countrywide.
So it's up to Eric Holder to do the job that Alberto Gonzales and Michael Mukasey refused to do.
We're waiting.
And waiting.
And waiting.
Gee, I think I saw him last week on Bahnhoff Strasse in Zurich. . .he was the only one there who looked orange. . .at least that is where he should be if he was smart - there or in the Cayman Islands. . .why do these crooks like Madoff stick around to be arrested. . .take the money and run. . .but then I guess they think they are above the law.
Mark - send me a note - might be in your neighborhood
They are only charging him with $140mil of insider trading.
The entire business model was a fraud.
Hi Keith, congrats. You called this from way way back.
'Bout time.
Should be interesting to see if he can keep his mouth shut or if he leaks a lot of names that would rather not be leaked.
God, I think I was dancing when I saw them charge the orange fraud!!! Finally, the perp walks begin....about damn time. This may also expose Dodd and his "sweet deal" with Countryscum. It is a great day for America today...stock rally and orange man going to the big house (hopefully) - I wonder if the two are connected.
Countrywide had Fannie and Freddie in their pocket. This should go all the way to the top!
These guys new exactly what they were doing.
Simply put they made loans to people they new couldn't repay them and they overlooked any borrower defiency.
I know folks that got loans from Countrywide and now way could their income support the loan.
A little honest due dilegence would have saved a lot of good folks a lot of trouble.
Plus they lied about the rates being fixed and they were adjustable with the infamous response to the borrower question "Why is my 4.5% fixed rate going up?"
Countrywide canned response "Oh that is the margin! It is a fixed rate!"
Assholes!
That Orange guy was suspect from the start. He would get on Cnbc every couple of weeks to pump the stock then he would dump it. Same with that other guy from Chk ( McClendan) He would get on Fast money to pump his stock only to find out the company loaned him the money to buy the stock. I never turst guys who are always orange.
*singing in falsetto*
we've only just beeegun....
Could Greg Swann be next or would that be asking the gods for too much?
no criminal charges
so it does not mean anything other than a slap on the wrist and a child's scolding
Wow! Just saw the news! Finally! Keith, I was a faithful reader of your housing panic blog for years and was sad to see it end. You were tireless and hardworking in covering the Mozillo/Countrywide mess. My own mortgage was with Countrywide (non subprime,way before the current mess) and when it switched to Bank of America last month, I thought of your blog. You predicted correctly everything.
I haven't followed this blog but I will try to now. Keep up the good work and thanks!
This will be a day long remembered...
You Da man KEITH .........
“True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.” Winston Churchill.
Finally, Mozilo's going down!
Who's next?
You Da man KEITH .........
“True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.” Winston Churchill.
Where is Super Nig AG Holder?
Bitch. Punk.
I just changed the blog's name in honor of today
Why do I feel again that my work may be done?
I tend to agree, Mozilo gives the already-somewhat-maligned color orange (my favorite color, for various reasons) an even worse reputation...
Check out this HP post from March 2007 if you want to know why Mozilo was charged today. And why we stuck on him like white on rice:
http://housingpanic.blogspot.com/2007/03/countrywides-mozilo-takes-140000000-off.html
March 07, 2007
Countrywide's Mozilo takes $140,000,000 off the top - and sends the CFO out to pump up the stock yesterday (so he can sell some more)
It's a civil fraud case. He won't go to jail. They'll just take half his money, at the most.
"Americans will always do the right thing after they have exhuasted all other avenues".
-Winston Spencer Churchill
How prophetic.
Where is the asshole Attorney General of the USA?
F-ing scaredy cat Dick.
F-you Holder.
CRIMINAL CHARGES FOR MOZILO
Prison, Sodomy, AIDS and Death.
Here's his wikipedia page - doesn't mention today's charges yet
I'm too lazy tonight. Someone go deface (and update) this page, OK?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelo_Mozilo
I hope to see lots of posts about sunbeds, Chris Dodd and other good stuff there tomorrow
Remember all the Realtwhores® defending his sorry ass? They said he's a great man who revolutionized the mortgage 'industry'. He started Countrywide by himself and was a great entrepreneur.
Yeah you F's, and mob bosses and crack dealers are great entrepreneurs too. F you you f'ing Realtwhores®.
Lets see, Mozilo has Chris Dodd and Barney Frank as his buddies, and probably a few lesser pols in his pocket as well. Do you really think he's worried about these SEC charges?
Bread and circuses Keith, bread and circuses.
I can just see Keith right now, shirt off, calvary hat on, crowched down on one knee.
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning".
http://tinyurl.com/qpekk3
Since April 10th, 2009 the head of one of my former employers has been indicted by the FBI for wire fraud and now another charged by the SEC with Fraud and Insider Trading.
I'm so happy that I got in to the mortgage business in '05. Brilliant move.
I feel like this is the HP/S&A Orange Revolution
Maybe I'm over-reacting
Anonymous said...
Could Greg Swann be next or would that be asking the gods for too much?
ha ha
I went to his website a week or so again and he was spouting Kipling poetry...all very surreal, like it was his final days. If he starts blasting Madama Butterfly on his stereo, then someone needs to call the suicide prevention hotline.
anton chiguhr
anyhoo, did you notice BAC was up nearly 6% today. I hope they charge him every day.
Good going Keith! Just saw the headlines in the NYTimes and rushed here - and bingo - your banner says it all.
This will be a fun one!
I got the chills when I saw the news come across the wire. FINALLY!
One man, charged in a civil suit for $140 million. What a joke the SEC is. He will walk, no-one big is going to jail over this.
You did it Keith! You just know the SEC was reading HP and SA and looking at your calendar ticker!
So, it's the beginning of the end for the orange man. Let's hope they can pin criminal charges on him too. And then go after the congressmen who got those sweet financing deals and got tons of money from angelo. But he's a wiley one, ya know. I can see the likes of Barney pulling strings for him...
Hey, do prisons have tanning beds in them?...
Housing Panic lives!
Keith, love the orange type face.
Nice touch! And again,congratulations on your indepth coverage and prediction of today's events. I do believe that criminal charges will follow. They are probably working out a "plea" as we speak.
Orange theme on the site... nice touch.
Cheers!
HAHAHAHA
I love the Orange site Keith. I knew you were gonna love that headline.
Lets not get carried away and focus on real-estate and investments.
But its nice to see some Justice.
It's one of those things that you've been waiting for so long. Now it's here and you don't know quite how to feel.
Maybe I'll feel more excited once the "guilty" verdict is read.
Jymkata
Been a long time coming.
Couldn't happen to a nicer son-of-a-bitch.
Keefer,
Love your reaction,
and the Orange color background, nice touch...
I think you need a glass of champagne!
You and Jennifer Anniston.
If Mr Orange Face pulls a David Carradine, it'll save tax money on containment, but the ESTATE could still be fined anyways optimising return on money invested in a trial.
If he chooses life, ship him to Gitmo via the Gulfstream V "torture jet". With in-flight waterboarding.
He he, when I heard the news I just had to come back to this blog to see the reaction. I first heard about this corrupt permatan idiot from housing panic.
Keith, Haffit & others who are pounding the drums for true criminal charges:
Again, just be patient. The criminal case has to be developed separately; the burden of proof is much, much higher - that "beyond a reasonable doubt" thing. And the Orange One has many shekels to shower upon his criminal lawyers. This is a game of poker. You don't just shove your whole stack into the pot right at the get-go.
What you do it toss in a few chips, and see if the other guy starts to sweat, or his hand trembles a bit.
The Feds are going through massive stacks of paper, trying to connect all the dots. Orangelo managed to skirt the laws of legality, aided, of course, by the dimwit Republican "de-regulation" push that pretty much made everything but out-and-out theft at gunpoint legal. Financial chicanery? Lying on your investor documents? No problem - as long as you kick big bucks into the Republican campaign coffers.
So the Feds are threatening his money - the one thing he loves most in this world - to see what his reaction is. Will he come out swinging? Will he panic? Will he start shifting assets around, and what will that tell you about what he's trying to hide?
The dimwit commenters here don't understand what it's like to play at that level. They never will.
But for those who do, it is understood that this is a delicate game, and it is going to take a long, long time to run down a huge beast like Orangelo.
ORANGE INFLATION ALERT:
I dont mean to go off the topic Keith, but, GASOLINE prices in west michigan today SURGED to $2.97 A F*#@!ING GALLON!!!!!
WTF????
I will pay a fine and be off the hook my friends.Keep renting and wishing you were me.Off for some drinks and some ladies.
$140,000,000 is a drop in the bucket for someone who has $500,000,000..i hope he is found innocent of all charges. consumers fault for the mess we're in today..maybe all of you "posters" should look in the mirror...
This is a good start.
They need to do the same thing for all those GM execs who sold all their shares a couple weeks ago right before the BK.
I like the new tangerine color scheme.
Jersey Girl
It's not nice to post early April Fool's jokes, Keith. It's not nice at all.
"...Where is the asshole Attorney General of the USA?..."
Damn straight.
We're cheering because an individual will pay a pittance for his (rather small)part?
Many others, notably Indymac, committed the same fraud...nay MILLIONS of mortgage fraud felons roam the streets; never to be accosted.
These crimes PALE in contrast to what enabled the whole thing: the MONEY from pools of liar loans represented as AAA securities. Without those funds, no bank would have lent their own.
It was FRAUDULENT CONVEYANCE, and we'll never lay a glove on any of them.
Celebrate all the chicken scratch you like; whenever it gets hot the real criminals toss some under the bus.
Love the new color scheme Keith, very festive!
Angelo is going to find out - if he hasn't already - that he's not an insider.
Have yourself a nice perp walk, Mozilo!
HEY KEITH!!
You and your site were the first thing I thought of when I heard this news...
Love the orange borders buddy!!
Bring on the CRIMINAL CHARGES!!
"oh, i hope he starts singing to"
Even the slightest hint that the OrangeMan will start singing, and he will need more Secret Service protection than Obama to keep his tangerine self from becoming another "tragic suicide by hanging" statistic!
===================================
"They are only charging him with $140mil of insider trading.saves his ass."
Equate dollars with years and then figure how long they sent Martha Stewart away for, for a measly couple hundred grand. At his age that could literally mean LIFE.
He'll sing!
"...so happy that I got in to the mortgage business in '05. Brilliant move..."
Heh. Kent and Mysti Cope
Money shot: "..."The media has somewhat tarnished the subprime industry and all the employees, and portrayed them as being dishonest," she said. "We're not dishonest. Not everybody was a bad borrower. Not every company was a bad lender."..."
"...rating agencies never looked at a single loan file. When they finally did look, after the markets had completely collapsed, they found, and I'm quoting Fitch, the smallest of the rating agencies, "the results were disconcerting, in that there was the appearance of fraud in nearly every file we examined."..."
Back room session:
Prosecutor: Judge, Mozilo's papers just don't add up. He doesn't qualify for big fraud.
Judge: Push it through anyway, we need the business.
He will probably get a slap on the wrist. Rich people in America are above the law.
I've been waiting for this since I started reporting on Housing Fraud and the coming bubble pop in 2005 on my local cable tv shows, internet blogs, and seminars.
The amount of time it took to bring him in is, itself, criminal!
Something to think about, though. The richer the criminal, the greater the chance they will not be convicted or the conviction will be overturned at the appeals level. Most people don't have the 50 to 250,000$ to mount an appeal and get stuck with whatever justice the court gives.
The housing bubble is still deflating and it's going to take time to bring the thousands of Ponzi look alikes and corporate leeches and lying flippers to justice....Unless a Special Forgiveness Holiday is declared and Amnesty is given to "heal the nation and look forward instead of backwards to a new economy...."
Don't be suprised if there isn't any money to continue prosection of even the most blatent real estate, mortgage, bank acts.
prophet atlantis
Orange ya glad that the man is goin' down?
About time... this was a given from day one! Hope he turns all his pals in - after all there is no honor among thieves. Here's hoping the Domino's start falling.
damn - a major loss for me...
angelo was my personal investment adviser - the best one I ever had - when I saw him selling CountryWide - I SOLD CountryWide - I even had to borrow shares to do it - made more money off of that than any of my previous positions... he got me started on the life of shorting all the financial crap...
we need him back in charge of some big company so we can watch his trades again...
token "bad guy" thrown under the bus to quell the masses, more to come.
Nothing to see here citizen's move along...
It was just a matter of time. Not an "if" but "when" question. Now, if the authorities would make this a starting point and go forward, that would be a real story. Be sure to read Mortgage Fraud Blog from R. Dollar and you'll see how widespread and deep the problem goes. M.F.B. rocks.
Smug Bastard
Congratulations Keith.
To me, this is more of a sign of green shoots than the market rally we've had the last few weeks.
-Mike
Congratulations! This is great news, I'll be wearing orange this week to comemorate the event.
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