On May 31st, Manhattan prosecutors filed criminal charges against Abacus Federal Savings Bank and 19 employees. These are the first criminal charges against an actual bank associated with the financial crisis. This very small bank issued fraudulent mortgages, otherwise known as liar loans and sold them to Fannie Mae.

Abacus Federal Savings Bank, a small bank with a major presence in New York City’s Chinese community, and 19 of its former employees have been charged with inflating the qualifications of mortgage applicants to meet federal loan standards, a scheme that prosecutors say brought the bank tens of millions of dollars in ill-gotten fees and sent hundreds of millions of dollars in risky mortgages to the investment market.

The thing is liar loans were extremely common, so why would New York Prosecutors go after this small community bank instead of the larger fish? Politics and resources.

Bill Black in the below Bloomberg law interview says this prosecution will probably be our token sacrifice. In other words, don't expect Countrywide, notorious for liar loans and now part of Bank of America to be put in cuffs, doing the perp walk.

The SEC had sued Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives with securities fraud, three years after the fact. The fraud charges are about lying to investors over subprime loans.

They knew and approved of misleading statements claiming the companies had minimal holdings of higher-risk mortgage loans, including subprime loans.

This is a civil case, not a criminal one. Most interesting while going after some ex-executives the SEC lets Fannie and Freddie off the hook. Nothing happens to the two GSEs now.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac each entered into a Non-Prosecution Agreement with the Commission in which each company agreed to accept responsibility for its conduct and not dispute, contest, or contradict the contents of an agreed-upon Statement of Facts without admitting nor denying liability. Each also agreed to cooperate with the Commission's litigation against the former executives.

The case is being filed in New York State and the three former executives from Fannie Mae are Chief Executive Officer Daniel H. Mudd, former Chief Risk Officer Enrico Dallavecchia, and former Executive Vice President of Fannie Mae's Single Family Mortgage business, Thomas A. Lund.

Freddie Macs sacrificial lambs are Chairman of the Board and CEO Richard F. Syron, former Executive Vice President and Chief Business Officer Patricia L. Cook, and former Executive Vice President for the Single Family Guarantee business Donald J. Bisenius.