Angelo R Mozilo

Regulators took on the mortgage industry's best-known figure Thursday, accusing former Countrywide Financial Corp. Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo of hiding his alarm about risky loans the company was making at the height of the housing boom while he was reaping nearly $140 million in profits on stock sales.

When David Gautreaux volunteered to assist at a charity golf tournament in Thousand Oaks two years ago, he was eager to meet the event's host, Angelo R. Mozilo, then chief executive of mortgage giant Countrywide Financial Corp. An actor and investor who owned Countrywide stock, Gautreaux was stationed at the 12th hole when Mozilo strode onto the green. Gautreaux remarked that Mozilo was winning. "He turned at me, and his voice was like a bark. He said, 'We better be!' " recalled Gautreaux, who was taken aback.

Former Countrywide Financial Corp. boss Angelo R. Mozilo, whose embrace of exotic loans helped fuel the mortgage boom and meltdown, will face Securities and Exchange Commission fraud charges unless his lawyers prevail in an eleventh-hour appeal, people familiar with the SEC's investigation said Wednesday. Mozilo is among several former executives of the Calabasas company whom the SEC staff wants to charge in a civil case, one of these people said.

Countrywide Financial Corp. founder Angelo Mozilo, one of the nation's highest-paid chief executives, stands to reap $115 million in severance-related pay if his troubled company is acquired by Bank of America Corp., regulatory filings show. Free rides on the company jet are also included in Mozilo's departure deal, and the company will pick up his country club bills until 2011. Other executives, including Home Depot Inc.'

Countrywide Financial Corp. Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo, under fire over the size of his potential payout from the proposed sale of his troubled mortgage company, says he is forfeiting some $37.5 million in severance pay, fees and perks that he was scheduled to receive upon his retirement. Mozilo, however, will still retain retirement benefits and deferred compensation that he has already earned, Countrywide said in a statement being released today.

Two consultants hired by Countrywide Financial Corp. raised concerns about Chairman Angelo R. Mozilo's lucrative pay package, but key recommendations were ignored and the company eventually hired a third advisor whose aim was to achieve "maximum opportunity" for Mozilo, documents show. The result was a pay contract that "was significantly more generous to Mr. Mozilo" than originally recommended, according to a report released by a congressional panel Thursday.

Countrywide Financial Corp. founder Angelo R. Mozilo defended his fortuitous stock trades before a congressional panel Friday, denying that he had manipulated his trading plan to unload about $141 million in stock options before the company collapsed. "You had good timing," needled Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

The top two executives of beleaguered Countrywide Financial Corp. will pocket $19 million in stock next week, according to a regulatory filing. It's the start of a series of multimillion-dollar payments expected to go to the pair before and after the company's pending takeover by Bank of America Corp. The largesse for Countrywide Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo and President David Sambol drew immediate fire from Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.

Angelo R. Mozilo struggled last week to bid farewell to No. 1 home lender Countrywide Financial Corp., the company he led for 39 years only to see it toppled by misadventures in high-risk mortgages. The usually silk-smooth Mozilo garbled words and at one point knocked over his microphone at a special shareholder meeting. Looking grim and sounding resigned, he said the era of independent home lenders like Calabasas-based Countrywide was at an end.

Details of one of the so-called VIP loans made by Countrywide Financial Corp. for "friends of Angelo" show how Chief Executive Angelo R. Mozilo personally saw to it that prominent borrowers enjoyed very attractive rates and a glitch-free mortgage process.