According to an article in Reuters, a former executive at Bank of America’s (BAC) Countrywide unit, told a federal jury on Tuesday that she did not knowingly sell faulty mortgages to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the run-up to the financial crisis.
Rebecca Mairone, a former chief operating officer of Countrywide's Full Spectrum Lending Division, is the lone individual defendant in the lawsuit brought by the U.S. government against the bank, which acquired Countrywide in 2008.
The trial, now in its fourth week at the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, is centered on the government's allegations that Countrywide defrauded Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage finance companies, by selling them thousands of defective mortgages. Countrywide sped up approvals to unqualified lenders in a process it called the "High-Speed Swim Lane" (HSSL), or "Hustle."
