Grand jury indicts mortgage co. chief in TARP case

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Grand jury indicts mortgage co. chief in TARP case

By PETE YOST
Associated Press Writer


WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal grand jury has indicted the head of what was once among the largest privately held mortgage lending companies for allegedly scheming to steal over half a billion dollars from the government's Troubled Assets Relief Program.

The indictment in Virginia alleges that Lee Bentley Farkas and co-conspirators carried out the alleged plot at their company, Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Corp. of Ocala, Fla., where Farkas was chief executive.

The attempt to get TARP funds was just one part of a scheme that was "truly stunning in its scale and complexity" and that resulted in losses of more than $1.9 billion, Lanny Breuer, the Justice Department's assistant attorney general for the criminal division, told a news conference Wednesday.

The co-conspirators even gave a name to their alleged effort to defraud the TARP: they called it Project Squirrel, said Neil MacBride, the U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Virginia.

Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for TARP, told reporters that investigators uncovered the alleged conspiracy over TARP funds before the theft could occur.

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