Justice Department 'Hustle' Case Against Bank of America Dies

By Christina Rexrode 

The government's Hustle case against Bank of America Corp. is finally dead.

The case, in which the government accused the bank's Countrywide Financial Corp. unit of churning out shoddy mortgage securities in the run-up to the financial crisis, already was thrown out by the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in May. The U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan, which had first brought the case in 2012, then asked the appeals court to reconsider its decision, a request the appeals court denied.

The U.S. attorney's office could have asked the Supreme Court to take up the matter, but Monday was the government's deadline to do so. The appellate court also threw out a fraud verdict against former Countrywide executive Rebecca Mairone, who now goes by Rebecca Steele and was one of the few individuals prosecuted for the financial crisis.

"We won. It's over. Justice is done," said Marc Mukasey, Ms. Steele's lawyer.

A Bank of America spokesman declined to comment. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office also declined to comment.

The Hustle case had been a landmark in the Obama administration's efforts to hold banks accountable for the financial crisis. The Second Circuit ruled the government hadn't proven that the bank's actions amounted to fraud.

Write to Christina Rexrode at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 22, 2016 12:09 ET (17:09 GMT)

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