US mortgage exec on trial for alleged $2B fraud

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia: Prosecutors on Monday accused the owner of what had been one of America's largest private mortgage companies of lying and stealing on a staggering scale at the outset of a trial involving the national housing crisis.

Lee B. Farkas, the former chairman and majority owner of Ocala, Florida-based Taylor Bean & Whitaker, is charged with 14 counts of fraud for allegedly stealing roughly $2 billion from three different banks and trying to defraud the federal government out of more than $500 million from its bank bailout program, the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP).