By Jacqueline Palank
The Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors said the former chairman of mortgage lender Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corp., Lee Farkas, should spend the rest of his life behind bars because he continues to deny responsibility for the devastation he wrought as the mastermind of a multibillion-dollar “fraud of staggering proportions.”
Prosecutors on Thursday filed court papers urging U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema to impose the statutory maximum prison sentence of 385 years on Mr. Farkas, whom a jury in April found guilty of 14 counts of conspiracy and bank, wire and securities fraud. Mr. Farkas, 58 years old, is set to be sentenced next Thursday.
On Friday afternoon, Mr. Farkas’s attorneys filed court papers requesting a sentence of 15 years, which they said would not only “adequately punish” Mr. Farkas but could also effectively be a life sentence for the 58-year-old man with a heart stent.
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