and its partners to file 285 federal criminal indictments and informations against 530 defendants who are allegedly victimizing more than 73,000 american homeowners and inflicting losses in excess of $1 billion. 530 defendants, $1 billion. those numbers sound incredible. almost too incredible if you ask some seasoned reporters. like the folks at bloomberg who reported at the time that the number of defendants seemed inflated. as it included one case filed two years before president obama was elected. the justice department subsequently declined to provide bloomberg with a complete list of the hundreds of indictments on $1 billion in lawsuits. timely just in the last few days late on friday, the justice department, to its credit, came out and admitted that the numbers eric holder cited last year were just wrong. like really quite wrong. for example, remember how eric holder said the program had resulted in indictments and information against 530 defendants?
originated with a financial industry lobbyist. nice try, guys. nice try. next up, to the justice department, where just last fall a big mortgage fraud initiative was being touted as a major success. attorney general eric holder, himself, convened a press conference to roll out the very impressive results of this mortgage fraud crackdown. over the past 12 months, enabled the justice department and its partners to file 285 federal criminal indictments and informations against 530 defendants who are allegedly victimizing more than 73,000 american homeowners and inflicting losses in excess of $1 billion. 530 defendants, $1 billion. those numbers sound incredible. almost too incredible if you ask some seasoned reporters. like the folks at bloomberg who reported at the time that the number of defendants seemed inflated. as it included one case filed two years before president obama was elected. the justice department subsequently declined to provide bloomberg with a complete list o