Mortgage fraud was a national pastime.
Buyers who couldn’t really afford their homes, real estate agents who would do anything for a commission, mortgage brokers who would do anything for a fee, banks competing with each other in a race to the bottom, all the way on up to the highest echelons of Washington and Wall Street.
Not everyone, however, is facing criminal charges. For instance Angelo Mozilo, former CEO of what was the nation’s largest mortgage lender, Countrywide Financial, only had to pay a civil penalty without admitting nor denying guilt. But Diane H. Frederick Atari, a real estate agent in Virgina, well, that’s another story.
Click here to read my column in The Sunday Wall Street Journal.
