Abacus Federal Savings Bank charged with mortgage fraud

One of the things that has been galling is watching various officials tasked to protect the public from financial services miscreants is to have them prattle meaningless statistics about how the number of actions of various sorts that they’ve taken is up relative to the previous incumbents. That’s tantamount to a MASH unit tallying up what a great job they did in improving the vaccination rate while not even looking at a huge rise in the mortality rate and questioning whether their response was adequate.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Abacus Federal Savings Bank, which caters to Chinese immigrants in New York and other communities, has been charged with selling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of fraudulent mortgages to Fannie Mae.

Fannie Mae CEO Michael Williams plans to resign, the government-controlled mortgage giant said Tuesday. Williams, who took over as president and CEO of the troubled company in 2009, will continue as CEO until Fannie Mae's board names a successor. The firm did not provide a specific reason for Williams' departure; in a statement, Williams said only that he had decided that "the time is right to turn over the reins to a new leader." Williams will leave behind a firm still struggling to get its finances in order.

Federal officials filed criminal and civil charges against former Jefferies senior MBS trader, Jesse Litvak, 38, yesterday for allegedly defrauding investors and the government while selling mortgage-backed securities from 2009 to 2011.

WASHINGTON — Fannie Mae earned $17.2 billion last year, the biggest annual profit in the U.S. mortgage giant’s history, helped by a record fourth quarter. The 2012 gain was driven by the housing recovery, which has reduced delinquencies and lifted home prices six years after the bubble burst. The government-controlled company also said Tuesday that it paid dividends of $11.6 billion to the U.S. Treasury in 2012. Fannie says it expects to remain profitable “for the foreseeable future.” The company did not seek any federal assistance in 2012.

WASHINGTON — Fannie Mae earned $17.2 billion last year, the biggest annual profit in the U.S. mortgage giant’s history, helped by a record fourth quarter. The 2012 gain was driven by the housing recovery, which has reduced delinquencies and lifted home prices six years after the bubble burst. The government-controlled company also said Tuesday that it paid dividends of $11.6 billion to the U.S. Treasury in 2012. Fannie says it expects to remain profitable “for the foreseeable future.” The company did not seek any federal assistance in 2012.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged six former top executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with civil fraud, saying they misled the government and taxpayers about risky subprime mortgages the mortgage giants held during the housing bust....