New Century probe may widen

Federal bankruptcy regulators urged a bankruptcy judge to expand the scope of a probe of New Century Financial Corp., the Irvine sub-prime mortgage lender that failed this year.

Kelly Beaudin Stapleton, U.S. trustee for the Delaware court where New Century collapsed, on May 21 won the power to appoint an examiner, who has yet to be named, to look into the roots of the company's demise.

But now the U.S. trustee wants the examiner to have the power to examine New Century's accounting for 2005 in addition to records from 2006, which were already on the agenda because the firm admitted accounting irregularities that would require the restatement of reported financial results for that year.