Taylor Bean Ties to Freddie Mac Loom in Mortgage-Fraud Trial

Lee Farkas, the former chairman of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corp., went on trial today as the accused mastermind of a $1.9 billion fraud conspiracy. Looming in the background was the company’s relationship with the bailed-out federal mortgage financier, Freddie Mac.

Farkas, 58, is charged with orchestrating a scheme involving fake mortgage assets that duped some of the country’s largest financial institutions, including Bank of America Corp., targeted the U.S. bank bailout program and contributed to the failure of Montgomery, Alabama-based Colonial Bank. Freddie Mac was the most important ingredient in Taylor Bean’s growth into the largest U.S. non-depository mortgage lender by 2008.