Jury convicts exec in $3 billion mortgage fraud case

[spanone]

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia — A jury on Tuesday convicted the majority owner of what had been one of America's largest mortgage companies on all 14 counts in a $2.9 billion fraud trial that officials have said is one of the most significant prosecutions to arise from the U.S. financial crisis.

Prosecutors said Lee Farkas led a fraud scheme of staggering proportions for roughly eight years as chairman of Florida-based Taylor Bean & Whitaker. The fraud not only caused the company's 2009 collapse and put its 2,000 employees out of work, but also contributed to the collapse of Alabama-based Colonial Bank, the sixth-largest bank failure in U.S. history.

The jury returned its verdict late Tuesday after more than a full day of deliberations.

Colonial and two other major banks — Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas — were collectively cheated out of nearly $3 billion, prosecutors estimated. Farkas and his cohorts — six of whom entered guilty pleas to related charges and testified against him at the two-week trial in U.S. District Court — also tried to fraudulently obtain more than $500 million in taxpayer-funded relief from the government's bank bailout program, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42678327/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy/#

[msanthrope]

1. Start talking, Lee. Otherwise, it's Butner for you. n/t

[Blue_Tires]

2. will there be any real punishment, or just probation---fine---back to the golf course?

[malaise]

3. Many more should follow him

Fingers crossed!