Southern District Judge Jed Rakoff has ordered the Bank of America to pay $1.27 billion in penalties in connection with a wide-ranging mortgage fraud perpetrated by its Countrywide financial unit, and slapped a $1 million personal judgment on a former Countywide executive.
Rakoff’s decision, released Wednesday, followed a trial last fall in which jurors found that Countrywide and Rebecca Mairone, the only individual charged in the case, defrauded the government-sponsored Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae programs by peddling at break-neck speed what they knew were substandard loans during the recession of 2007 and 2008.
