WASHINGTON—Lee Bentley Farkas, the former chairman of a private mortgage lending company, Taylor, Bean & Whitaker (TBW), was convicted today for his role in a more than $2.9 billion fraud scheme that contributed to the failures of Colonial Bank, one of the 25 largest banks in the United States in 2009, and TBW, one of the largest privately held mortgage lending companies in the United States in 2009.

The conviction was announced today by Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride for the Eastern District of Virginia; Acting Special Inspector General Christy Romero for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP); Assistant Director in Charge James W. McJunkin of the FBI’s Washington Field Office; Michael P. Stephens, Acting Inspector General of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD-OIG); Jon T. Rymer, Inspector General of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC-OIG); Steve A. Linick, Inspector General of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA-OIG); and Victor F.O. Song, Chief of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI).

After a 10-day trial, a federal jury in the Eastern District of Virginia found Farkas guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit bank, wire and securities fraud; six counts of bank fraud; four counts of wire fraud; and three counts of securities fraud. At sentencing, scheduled for July 1, 2011, Farkas faces a maximum prison term of 30 years for the conspiracy charge and for each count of bank fraud, 20 years for each count of wire fraud related to TARP, 30 years for each count of wire fraud affecting a financial institution and 25 years for each securities fraud count. Farkas was remanded into custody.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Farkas and his co-conspirators engaged in a scheme that misappropriated more than $1.4 billion from Colonial Bank’s Mortgage Warehouse Lending Division in Orlando, Fla., and approximately $1.5 billion from Ocala Funding, a mortgage lending facility controlled by TBW. Farkas and his co-conspirators misappropriated this money to, among other things, cover TBW’s operating expenses. The fraud scheme contributed to the failures of Colonial Bank and TBW.

Six individuals have pleaded guilty for their roles in the fraud scheme, including: Paul Allen, former chief executive officer of TBW; Raymond Bowman, former president of TBW; Desiree Brown, former treasurer of TBW; Catherine Kissick, former senior vice president of Colonial Bank and head of its Mortgage Warehouse Lending Division (MWLD); Teresa Kelly, former operations supervisor for Colonial Bank’s MWLD; and Sean Ragland, a former senior financial analyst at TBW.

“Lee Farkas, the former chairman of TBW, masterminded one of the largest bank fraud schemes in history,” said Assistant Attorney General Breuer. “His shockingly brazen scheme poured fuel on the fire of the financial crisis. It not only led to the downfall of TBW, one of the largest private mortgage lending companies in the United States, but also contributed to the failure of one of the country’s largest commercial banks. Mr. Farkas may have thought he could steal nearly $3 billion from investors and taxpayers and sail into the sunset. But now a jury has told him otherwise, and he must face the severe consequences.”

“Today a jury convicted Lee Farkas of orchestrating one of the longest and largest bank fraud schemes in the country,” said U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride. “In 2008, Lee Farkas boasted that he ‘could rob a bank with a pencil.’ And he did just that. His staggering greed led him to steal nearly $3 billion from Colonial Bank and other investors. Farkas’s mammoth fraud contributed to the toppling of a financial institution and the ripple effects were felt from Wall Street to Main Street. Now he’s being held responsible for the financial ruin he left in his wake.”

“This investigation required thousands of hours of work by investigators, forensic accountants and analysts to sort through complex mortgage and lending documents,” said Assistant Director in Charge McJunkin. “I’d like to thank the many other agencies who worked with FBI personnel to build a strong investigative team; a team still out there working today to protect federal funds and innocent victims.”

“Today’s verdict ensures that Farkas will pay for his crime—an unprecedented scheme to defraud regulators during the height of the financial crisis and to steal over $550 million from the American taxpayers through TARP,” said Acting Special Inspector General Romero for SIGTARP. “SIGTARP and its partners in the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force stopped the scheme dead in its tracks and will continue to bring to justice those criminals who seek to profit by exploiting TARP through fraud.”

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, the fraud scheme began in 2002, when Farkas and his co-conspirators ran overdrafts in TBW bank accounts at Colonial Bank in order to cover TBW’s cash shortfalls. Farkas and his co-conspirators at TBW and Colonial Bank transferred money between accounts at Colonial Bank to hide the overdrafts. Evidence presented at trial showed that after the overdrafts grew to more than $100 million, Farkas and his co-conspirators covered up the overdrafts and operating losses by causing Colonial Bank to purchase from TBW over time more than $1.5 billion in what amounted to worthless mortgage loan assets, including loans that TBW had already sold to other investors and fake pools of loans supposedly being formed into mortgage-backed securities. Farkas and his co-conspirators caused Colonial Bank to report these assets on its books at face value when in fact the mortgage loan assets were worthless. By August 2009, approximately $500 million in fake pools of loans remained on Colonial Bank’s books.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Farkas and his co-conspirators at TBW also misappropriated more than $1.5 billion from Ocala Funding. Ocala Funding sold asset-backed commercial paper to financial institution investors, including Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas Bank. Ocala Funding, in turn, was required to maintain collateral in the form of cash and/or mortgage loans at least equal to the value of outstanding commercial paper.

Evidence presented at trial established that Farkas and his co-conspirators diverted cash from Ocala Funding to TBW to cover its operating losses, and as a result, created significant deficits in the amount of collateral Ocala Funding possessed to back the outstanding commercial paper. To cover up the diversions, the conspirators sent false information to Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas Bank and other financial institution investors and led them to falsely believe that they had sufficient collateral backing the commercial paper they had purchased. When TBW failed in August 2009, the banks were unable to redeem their commercial paper for full value. Farkas and his co-conspirators also caused approximately $900 million in loans to be held on Colonial Bank’s books when in fact the loans had already been sold to Freddie Mac and other investors.

According to court documents and evidence at trial, in the fall of 2008, Colonial Bank’s holding company, Colonial BancGroup Inc., applied for $570 million in taxpayer funding through the Capital Purchase Program (CPP), a sub-program of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). In connection with the application, Colonial BancGroup submitted financial data and filings that included materially false information related to mortgage loans and securities held by Colonial Bank as a result of the fraudulent scheme perpetrated by Farkas and his co-conspirators. Colonial BancGroup’s TARP application was conditionally approved for $553 million contingent on the bank raising $300 million in private capital.

Evidence at trial established that Farkas and his co-conspirators falsely informed Colonial BancGroup that they had identified sufficient investors to satisfy the TARP capital contingency. Farkas and his TBW co-conspirators diverted $25 million from Ocala Funding into an escrow account and falsely represented that the money was on behalf of capital raise investors. Farkas and his TBW co-conspirators caused Colonial BancGroup to issue a false and misleading financial statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and press release announcing the success of the capital raise. Ultimately, Colonial BancGroup did not receive any TARP funds.

Evidence at trial also established that Farkas and his co-conspirators caused Colonial BancGroup to file materially false financial data with the SEC regarding its assets in annual reports contained in Forms 10-K and quarterly filings contained in Forms 10-Q. Colonial BancGroup’s materially false financial data included overstated assets for mortgage loans that had little to no value that Farkas and his co-conspirators caused Colonial Bank to purchase. Farkas and his co-conspirators also caused TBW to submit materially false financial data to the Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae) in order to extend TBW’s authority to issue Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Farkas also personally misappropriated more than $20 million from TBW and Colonial Bank to finance his lifestyle, including purchasing multiple homes, scores of cars, a jet and sea plane, and restaurants and bars.

In August 2009, the Alabama State Banking Department, Colonial Bank’s regulator, seized the bank and appointed the FDIC as receiver. Colonial BancGroup also filed for bankruptcy in August 2009.

“The successful prosecution of Farkas and his associates highlights the commitment and combined efforts of DOJ and federal law enforcement to hold those responsible from all levels of a mortgage company,” said Acting Inspector General Stephens for HUD-OIG. “Efforts to protect FHA and Ginnie Mae are strengthened by this verdict.”

“Today’s verdict confirms that the former chairman of one of the leading mortgage lending firms in the Southeast engaged in criminal conduct during the mid-2000s,” said Inspector General Rymer of FDIC-OIG. “We are proud to work with our partners at the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia to bring to justice individuals whose fraud contributed significantly to the financial crisis and the failure of a major financial institution.”

“This conviction represents a victory for Freddie Mac and American taxpayers, who have invested $64.2 billion in Freddie Mac to date,” said Inspector General Linick of the FHFA-OIG. “ The fraud that Farkas perpetrated on Freddie Mac directly affected its bottom line and, in turn, American taxpayers. FHFA-OIG looks forward to future cooperative efforts with law enforcement partners to combat fraud against Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and the Federal Home Loan Banks.”

The case was prosecuted by Deputy Chief Patrick Stokes and Trial Attorney Robert Zink of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Charles Connolly and Paul Nathanson of the Eastern District of Virginia. This case was investigated by the FBI’s Washington Field Office, SIGTARP, FDIC-OIG, HUD-OIG, FHFA-OIG, and the IRS Criminal Investigation. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the Department of the Treasury also provided support in the investigation. The Department of Justice would like to thank the SEC for their assistance.

This conviction is part of efforts underway by President Barack Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force. President Obama established the interagency task force to wage an aggressive, coordinated, and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes. The task force includes representatives from a broad range of federal agencies, regulatory authorities, inspectors general and state and local law enforcement who, working together, bring to bear a powerful array of criminal and civil enforcement resources. The task force is working to improve efforts across the federal executive branch, and with state and local partners, to investigate and prosecute significant financial crimes, ensure just and effective punishment for those who perpetrate financial crimes, combat discrimination in the lending and financial markets, and recover proceeds for victims of financial crimes. For more information about the task force visit: www.stopfraud.gov.

WASHINGTON—Paul Allen, the former chief executive officer (CEO) at Taylor, Bean & Whitaker (TBW), pleaded guilty today to making false statements and conspiring to commit bank and wire fraud for his role in a $1.5 billion fraud scheme that contributed to the failure of TBW.

The guilty plea was announced today by Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride for the Eastern District of Virginia; Acting Special Inspector General Christy Romero for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP); Assistant Director in Charge James W. McJunkin of the FBI’s Washington Field Office; Michael P. Stephens, Inspector General of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD-OIG); Jon T. Rymer, Inspector General of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC-OIG); Steve A. Linick, Inspector General of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA-OIG); and Victor F.O. Song, Chief of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Investigation.

Allen, 55, of Oakton, Va., pleaded guilty to a two-count criminal information before U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema in the Eastern District of Virginia. Allen faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison for each count when he is sentenced on June 21, 2011.

According to a statement of facts submitted with his plea agreement, Allen joined TBW in 2003 as its CEO and reported directly to its chairman. He admitted in court that from 2005 through August 2009, he and other co-conspirators engaged in a scheme to defraud financial institutions that had invested in a wholly owned lending facility called Ocala Funding. Ocala Funding raised money by selling asset-backed commercial paper to financial institutions, including Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas, and used the money to purchase TBW mortgages. The facility was managed by TBW and had no employees of its own.

According to court records, shortly after Ocala Funding was established, Allen learned there were inadequate assets backing its commercial paper, a deficiency referred to internally at TBW as a “hole” in Ocala Funding. Allen admitted that in an effort to cover up the hole and to mislead investors, he told a co-conspirator to produce reports that concealed the hole. He also admitted that he knew that these misleading reports were sent to Ocala Funding investors and other third parties.

Allen also admitted in court that he kept the chairman of TBW informed of the collateral shortfall, and that in the fall of 2008, Allen was told that the hole had been moved from Ocala Funding to Colonial Bank. At the time that TBW ceased operations, the hole was approximately $1.5 billion. According to court documents, as a result of the Ocala Funding fraud scheme, Freddie Mac, Colonial Bank, and Ocala Funding investors believed they had an undivided ownership interest in thousands of the same mortgage loans.

Court records state that in March 2009, Allen was directed to approach a private equity investor to secure capital to meet a $300 million private capital requirement the U.S. Department of Treasury set for Colonial Bank to receive $553 million from the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). Although Allen failed to secure the funding from the investor, he admitted in court that the TBW chairman represented to others that the investor was a $50 million participant and that the chairman diverted $5 million from Ocala Funding to an escrow account in the investor’s name. This deception caused Colonial Bank to falsely announce publicly it had met its $300 million capital raise contingency and to send a letter to the FDIC that all investors had met a 10 percent escrow deposit requirement. Colonial Bank never received any TARP funds.

In court today, Allen also admitted to making false statements in a letter he sent to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, through Ginnie Mae, regarding TBW’s audited financial statements for the fiscal year ending on March 31, 2009. In this letter, Allen omitted that the delay in submitting the financial data was attributed to concerns its independent auditor had raised about the financing relationship between TBW and Colonial Bank. Instead, Allen falsely attributed the delay to a new acquisition and TBW’s switch to a compressed 11-month fiscal year.

To date, five other individuals have pleaded guilty for their roles in this and related fraud schemes.

The case is being prosecuted by Deputy Chief Patrick Stokes and Trial Attorney Robert Zink of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Charles Connolly and Paul Nathanson of the Eastern District of Virginia. This case was investigated by SIGTARP, the FBI’s Washington Field Office, FDIC-OIG, HUD-OIG, FHFA-OIG, and the IRS Criminal Investigation. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the Department of the Treasury also provided support in the investigation.

This prosecution was brought in coordination with President Barack Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force. President Obama established the interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force to wage an aggressive, coordinated, and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes. The task force includes representatives from a broad range of federal agencies, regulatory authorities, inspectors general, and state and local law enforcement who, working together, bring to bear a powerful array of criminal and civil enforcement resources. The task force is working to improve efforts across the federal executive branch, and with state and local partners, to investigate and prosecute significant financial crimes, ensure just and effective punishment for those who perpetrate financial crimes, combat discrimination in the lending and financial markets, and recover proceeds for victims of financial crimes.

San Fransisco –  Neil Barofsky was unpacking boxes in December 2008 when the stench of sewage wafted through the hallways at the 168-year-old Main Treasury Building. The space assigned to him as head of the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or SIGTARP, was shoehorned into the basement, three floors below U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s offices.

 

“They eventually discovered a broken sewer main beneath the floor,” says Barofsky, 40, adding that he doesn’t think any slight was intended by relegating him to the malodorous quarters. Still, he says with a smile, “I wasn’t given the prime real estate in Treasury.”

 

The incident was noted by Beltway insiders, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its June issue.

 

“It became an apt metaphor for the foul relations between Treasury and SIGTARP,” says Michael Smallberg, an investigator at the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington watchdog group.

 

That tense relationship has grown out of Barofsky’s mandate to monitor and root out fraud and waste in the management of TARP, the $700 billion program passed in October 2008 to remove toxic debt from the banks. The special inspector general, in a series of reports, interviews and congressional hearings, has heaped criticism on the Treasury Department’s operation of the program.

 

Barofsky’s most recent broadside came on April 20, when a SIGTARP report labeled a housing-loan modification program funded with $50 billion of TARP money as ineffectual.

 

230,000 Homeowneres

 

Treasury spokesman Andrew Williams counters that the program has resulted in modifications for more than 230,000 homeowners.

 

The TARP watchdog has also criticized Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner in reports and in congressional testimony for his handling of the process by which insurance giant American International Group Inc. was saved from insolvency in 2008, when Geithner was head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

 

The secrecy that enveloped the deal was unwarranted, Barofsky says, adding that his probe of an alleged New York Fed coverup in the AIG case could result in criminal or civil charges.

 

In Senate Finance Committee testimony on April 20, Barofsky said SIGTARP would investigate seven AIG-linked mortgage-related securities similar to Abacus 2007-AC1, the instrument underwritten by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. that is at the center of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit filed against the investment bank on April 16.

 

Leading the Charge

 

“I’ve been in contact with the SEC,” he told the committee. “We’re going to coordinate with them, but we’re going to lead the charge. We’re going to review these transactions.”

 

Barofsky and Geithner’s offices have gone toe-to-toe over AIG, alleged lax oversight of TARP funds and even over the question of whom Barofsky reports to.

 

Barofsky, a former federal prosecutor who was once the target of a kidnapping plot by Colombian drug traffickers, says he’s also looking into possible insider trading connected to TARP. He says his agency would want to know if bankers bought stock in their companies before it was made public that their institutions would get TARP money, for example.

 

“There was a time when, if you got that word the stock price would go up, and if you were to trade on that information prior to the public announcement, that would be classic insider trading,” Barofsky says.

 

‘Tea Partiers’

 

A Democrat named by a Republican president, Barofsky says missteps by both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations are to blame for TARP’s failures.

 

“There’s a reason there are Tea Partiers out there, and when you look at it, anger at the bailout is one of the first things they talk about,” says Barofsky, referring to the anti- Obama political movement. “This Treasury Department and the previous Treasury Department bear some of the responsibility for not being straightforward with the American people.”

 

Barofsky criticized Geithner’s predecessor, Paulson, in an October 2009 report, saying Paulson publicly described the initial nine TARP bank recipients as healthy when he knew that at least one of them risked failure.

 

In a letter responding to Barofsky, Assistant Treasury Secretary Herbert Allison wrote: “Any review of such announcements must be considered in light of the unprecedented circumstances in which they were made.”

 

Geithner and Paulson both declined to comment for this story.

 

Praise from Grassley

 

Barofsky, who has thinning jet-black hair and favors dark- gray suits, has won praise from both sides of the aisle in Congress.

 

“The special inspector general for TARP hit the ground running,” says Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican who helped draft the legislation creating SIGTARP. “He’s the kind of watchdog taxpayers need and deserve.”

 

From the day Congress created it, TARP has been troubled. Paulson crafted it as an initiative to buy the toxic assets that were then threatening to capsize the world’s banking system. Since then, the Treasury and Congress have transformed it into a hydra-headed beast encompassing 13 financial aid plans.

 

TARP had invested $204.9 billion in 707 banks, thrifts and credit unions through its Capital Purchase Program as of March 31; $69.1 billion remained to be paid back. It has committed to paying out $39.9 billion to modify mortgages, though it has disbursed only $91 million.

 

Hydra-Headed TARP

 

The Treasury Department has pledged to dole out tens of billions more to programs as varied as the Unlocking Credit for Small Business initiative and the Automotive Industry Financing Program, through which it owns 60.8 percent of General Motors Co. and 9.9 percent of Chrysler Group LLC.

 

Says Representative Jeb Hensarling, a Republican from Texas and former member of the Congressional Oversight Panel that guides TARP policy, “It’s almost a program that defies oversight.”

 

Of the $700 billion in TARP funding authorized by Congress in October 2008, the Treasury has planned for $545.1 billion in investments, committed $489.8 billion and disbursed $380.3 billion as of March 31. Institutions had repaid $180.8 billion.

 

SIGTARP has more than 40 agents, including former Secret Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Internal Revenue Service investigators, who sport blue windbreakers emblazoned with the SIGTARP seal.

 

They are authorized by Congress to carry guns — Barofsky does not — make arrests, and subpoena and seize records.

 

Still Too Big

 

In its late-January report, SIGTARP said that the banks rescued by TARP remained “too big to fail.” They still have an incentive to make risky wagers in order to generate the profits that will reward their executives, the report says.

 

“The definition of insanity is repeating the same actions over and over again and expecting a different result,” Barofsky says. “If the goal of TARP was to make sure we don’t have another financial collapse, well, obviously it’s made the likelihood of that much, much greater.”

 

Neil Michael Barofsky’s background prepared him well for a job that involves law enforcement, economics and political diplomacy. Born in Abington, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, he simultaneously earned degrees in economics and international relations from the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated magna cum laude from New York University Law School in 1995.

 

“Neil is not deterred by the prospect of powerful people or his supervisors coming down on him,” says Anthony Barkow, executive director of the Center on the Administration of Criminal Law at New York University, who worked with Barofsky in the U.S. Attorney’s Office. “He is an independent thinker and not afraid to ruffle feathers.”

 

Against the Grain

 

David Kotz, inspector general of the SEC, says, “Neil Barofsky has done a laudable job of taking aggressive positions where necessary. Inspector generals at one time or another must be prepared to go against the institutional grain.”

 

Geithner’s Treasury Department disputes the assertion that it has not been open about TARP.

 

“This is frankly one of the most transparent programs in the government,” says Tim Massad, chief counsel of Treasury’s Office of Financial Stability. “We’ve probably had 200 meetings with Neil and his staff.”

 

In April 2009, Treasury asked the Justice Department for a ruling on whether Barofsky and SIGTARP reported to Secretary Geithner. In a letter to Justice, Barofsky argued that he reported only to the president.

 

“We are absolutely an independent agency,” he says.

 

Treasury withdrew its request.

 

TARP’s Small Business

 

In February of this year, the department moved to exclude the Small Business Lending Fund from Barofsky’s oversight. The program is funded with $30 billion of TARP money.

 

“On its face, it looks like Treasury is trying to supersede SIGTARP’s position by having the program operate outside TARP,” says Smallberg of the Project on Government Oversight. “Barofsky is certainly a thorn in the side of Geithner.”

 

Meanwhile, Barofsky’s investigators continue to lay into TARP. In a January report, SIGTARP cited an unnamed money manager in TARP’s Public-Private Investment Program, which buys toxic assets, saying the person sold a recently downgraded mortgage-backed bond from a company fund, then promptly purchased the same security in the same amount at a higher price for a fund backed by TARP money.

 

Allison responded in a letter to Barofsky that the suspicious trade was referred to SIGTARP by Treasury compliance officers in the first place.

 

Insurance Banks

 

In a December report, Barofsky showed how insurance giants Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. and Lincoln National Corp. bought tiny thrifts — one with just $7 million in assets — to qualify for the TARP Capital Protection Program, which is designed to encourage bank lending. Hartford and Lincoln used the more than $4.3 billion in TARP funds they received almost entirely to finance insurance operations, according to the report.

 

“Treasury didn’t have to approve that,” Barofsky says.

 

Allison wrote SIGTARP that buying troubled assets from insurance companies was part of TARP.

 

Janet Tavakoli, founder of Chicago-based Tavakoli Structured Finance Inc., says Barofsky hasn’t been aggressive enough. She says SIGTARP should be running criminal probes of the bankers who underwrote and managed the collateralized debt obligations that were at the center of the financial meltdown.

 

CDOs are bundles of mortgage-backed bonds and other debt sold to investors.

 

Tavakoli says the CDO managers sometimes replaced relatively high-quality securities with new ones that were more likely to default.

 

‘Phony Labels’

 

“It is securities fraud if you take securities and package them and knowingly pass them off with phony labels,” she says.

 

Barofsky says investigations related to the underwriting and sale of CDOs are ongoing.

 

Barofsky is no longer confined to a fetid basement office. SIGTARP is now in a brown-granite building on L Street, nine blocks away from the Treasury. Sitting in his office, the investigator says he was at first surprised by the resistance he got from the Treasury to his inquiries.

 

“When I took the job, it wasn’t like I had really contemplated for a millisecond the political aspects,” says the lawman, sipping from a can of Diet Coke.

 

Barofsky says he’s battling an entrenched culture of secrecy in the Treasury and elsewhere.

 

“One of the important lessons that I hope will be learned from this entire financial crisis is that the reflexive reaction against transparency, that disclosure will bring terrible things, has not been proven true,” he says.

 

Culture of Secrecy

 

He offers the AIG bailout as an example. For more than a year, the New York Fed kept key aspects of the AIG bailout secret, including details of its own involvement and its decision to have AIG pay the insurer’s bank counterparties 100 cents on the dollar on the credit protection they’d bought against about $62 billion in CDOs.

 

In a November report, SIGTARP criticized Geithner’s failed efforts to obtain discounts from the banks.

 

After the banks had been paid in late 2008, a lawyer from the New York Fed sought to have AIG keep the banks’ identities under wraps, as well as data about the CDOs that would have revealed which firms had underwritten the toxic bonds and which ones had managed them.

 

“There’s a lot of things about AIG that were not disclosed, based on the assumption that the sky would fall,” Barofsky says. “Transparency does a lot more good than bad.”

 

TARP Police

 

Barofsky says the question of whether the New York Fed engaged in a coverup will result in some sort of action.

 

“We’re either going to have criminal or civil charges against individuals or we’re going to have a report,” Barofsky says. “This is too important for us not to share our findings.”

 

He won’t say whether the investigation is targeting Geithner personally.

 

In a statement, the New York Fed said: “Allegations that the New York Fed engaged in a coverup of its intervention in AIG are not true. The New York Fed has fully cooperated with the Special Inspector General.”

 

Barofsky’s to-do list grows. SIGTARP now has 120 employees, has initiated 20 audits and was involved with 84 investigations as of March 31. In January, it opened a New York office, with San Francisco and Los Angeles branches scheduled for later this year.

 

As long as the Treasury Department continues throwing money at the financial crisis, Barofsky’s TARP police will be watching.

 

–Editors: Michael Serrill, Beth Williams

©2010 Bloomberg News