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Reported Suicide Is Latest Shock at Freddie Mac
The New York Times ^ | April 22, 2009 | By CHARLES DUHIGG and JACK HEALY

Posted on 04/23/2009 8:19:38 AM PDT by khnyny

The pressures were already immense when David B. Kellermann was promoted to the top financial position at the mortgage giant Freddie Mac last September. Then they got even worse.

Mr. Kellermann’s boss and other top executives were ousted when the Treasury secretary seized Freddie Mac and its sibling company, Fannie Mae; others left on their own and were not replaced. Soon President Obama told the companies they were responsible for carrying out some of his programs to revive the economy, in addition to keeping the housing market afloat by buying and selling hundreds of thousands of mortgages a month.

Mr. Kellermann, 41, began working nonstop, sometimes returning home only to change clothes, colleagues say. He was losing weight and telling friends that it seemed impossible to appease everyone — regulators, lawmakers, investors and other executives — given their competing demands. Someone was always angry with him, he told one friend. And no matter how many hours everyone worked, it seemed as if the economy and homeowners were still slipping farther into the abyss.

Then early this month, Mr. Kellermann and other executives at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae became the focus of intense scrutiny when lawmakers learned they would receive bonuses totaling $210 million. Mr. Kellermann was set to receive $850,000 over 16 months. Reporters and camera crews showed up at his home in Vienna, an affluent Virginia suburb of Washington. Fearing that someone might attack his house, his wife or their 5-year-old daughter, he asked the company for a security detail.

Early on Wednesday, Mr. Kellermann went to the basement of his brick home and hanged himself, according to people familiar with the situation who were not authorized to speak. His body was removed five hours later, through a throng of neighbors, television crews and others.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Front Page News; Government; Politics/Elections; US: Virginia
KEYWORDS: bankingcrisis; corruption; cultureofcorruption; democrats; democratscandals; fanniemaesuicide; freddiemac; kellerman; kellermann; obama
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To: nascarnation

Obamacide? Has a better ring to it I think.


21 posted on 04/23/2009 9:15:54 AM PDT by kenth (He won? No, he zero.)
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To: Girlene

WHAT?? A Gun?? I never read anything about a gun. I think that must be false reporting.


22 posted on 04/23/2009 9:20:41 AM PDT by Ann Archy (Abortion....the Human Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
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To: kenth

LOL
I figured Barakancide was reminiscent of Arkancide


23 posted on 04/23/2009 9:24:31 AM PDT by nascarnation
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To: khnyny
Rope burns on wrists. Worst case of suicide seen lately.
Two shots to the head, worst case of suicide seen. sarcasm.
24 posted on 04/23/2009 9:31:22 AM PDT by AIC
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To: khnyny

How much help did Mr. Kellermann have putting the noose around his neck? What did he know, and what was he going to say?


25 posted on 04/23/2009 9:48:13 AM PDT by pallis
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To: pallis

The following is either a mistake or quite interesting:

http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=200904220957dowjonesdjonline000695&title=policegungunshot-wound-linked-to-freddie-mac-cfos-death-report

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

Police investigating the apparent suicide of Freddie Mac (FRE) acting chief financial officer David Kellermann confirmed the presence of a gun and a gunshot wound, AHN Media reported Wednesday on its Web site. Kellermann was found dead at his home early in the morning, according to Fairfax County police. Police spokesman Lucy Caldwell told AHN that other people were present at the home at the time of Kellermann’s death, in Reston, Va., and that there was a gun and a gunshot wound. Kellermann’s wife told local police he committed suicide, Washington, D.C., television station WUSA reported, citing county sheriff’s deputies.

Full story at www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7014883629


26 posted on 04/23/2009 9:56:13 AM PDT by khnyny ("The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.")
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To: khnyny

“...there was a gun and a gunshot wound...”

Wow! Maybe the gunshot didn’t do the job, so he or his helpers finished up by hanging him. If indeed his wife said he committed suicide, it could be that the “other people” in the house were his family, but why would they say “other people.”

I’ll stop now. I’m just doing what the liberal kooks would do, if this were turned around.


27 posted on 04/23/2009 10:14:41 AM PDT by pallis
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To: pallis; khnyny; nascarnation; ElayneJ; Girlene; nmh; a fool in paradise
THE SMOKING GUN?

Obama/Rahm/Holder will cover-up the details. The Obomamites are already colluding to cover-up info damaging to admin insiders.

Freddie Mac records exempt from FOIA (Obama Admin Denies Request)
Sunlight Foundation | 03/26/2009 | Bill Allison
Posted 03/27/2009 by BuckeyeTexan

Bob Secter and Andrew Zajac of the Chicago Tribune report that, while researching what went at Freddie Mac during the period White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel served on the government sponsored enterprise’s board of directors, they were unable to get minutes of board meetings and other information: The Obama administration rejected a Tribune request under the Freedom of Information Act to review Freddie Mac board minutes and correspondence during Emanuel’s time as a director. The documents, obtained by Falcon for his investigation, were “commercial information” exempt from disclosure, according to a lawyer for the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Freddie Mac executives cooked the books, mismanaged the firm, and ultimately drove it into the ground, costing taxpayers billions of dollars. The “commercial information” exemption is reserved for private companies–Freddie Mac is by no means a private company anymore.

COME AGAIN? Obama said in the FOIA memo, “The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears.” Obama added later that “In responding to requests under the FOIA, executive branch agencies (agencies) should act promptly and in a spirit of cooperation, recognizing that such agencies are servants of the public.”

=================================

Rahm Emanuel was director when Freddie Mac board was tipped to fraudulent BONUS scheme

"On (Rahm) Emanuel's watch, the board was told by executives of a plan to use accounting tricks to mislead shareholders about outsize profits the government-chartered firm was then reaping from risky investments.

The goal was to push earnings onto the books in future years, ensuring that Freddie Mac would appear profitable on paper for years to come and helping maximize annual bonuses for company brass. The accounting scandal wasn't the only one that brewed during Emanuel's tenure. During his brief time on the board, the company hatched a plan to enhance its political muscle.

That scheme, also reviewed by the board, led to a record $3.8 million fine from the Federal Election Commission for illegally using corporate resources to host fundraisers for politicians. Emanuel was the beneficiary of one of those parties after he left the board and ran in 2002 for a seat in Congress from the North Side of Chicago.

The board was throttled for its acquiescence to the accounting manipulation in a 2003 report by Armando Falcon Jr., head of a federal oversight agency for Freddie Mac. The scandal forced Freddie Mac to restate $5 billion in earnings and pay $585 million in fines and legal settlements.

It also foreshadowed even harder times at the firm. Many of those same risky investment practices tied to the accounting scandal eventually brought the firm to the brink of insolvency and led to its seizure last year by the Bush administration, which pledged to inject up to $100 billion in new capital to keep the firm afloat. The Obama administration has doubled that commitment."

SOURCE http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/obama/chi-rahm-emanuel-profit-26-mar26,0,5682373.story

===============================================

Rahm Emanuel's Profitable Raping of Freddie_Mac

Before its portfolio of bad loans helped trigger the current housing crisis, mortgage giant Freddie Mac was the focus of a major accounting scandal that led to a management shake-up, huge fines and scalding condemnation of passive directors by a top federal regulator.Emanuel should have to pay back the money he raped from Freddie Mac.

SOURCE http://www.duggback.com/politics/Rahm_Emanuel_s_Profitable_Raping_ofFreddie_Mac/

28 posted on 04/23/2009 11:35:16 AM PDT by Liz (I was like Snow White, then I drifted. Mae West (on liberalism.)
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To: penelopesire

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

Police investigating the apparent suicide of Freddie Mac (FRE) acting chief financial officer David Kellermann confirmed the presence of a gun and a gunshot wound, AHN Media reported Wednesday on its Web site. Kellermann was found dead at his home early in the morning, according to Fairfax County police. Police spokesman Lucy Caldwell told AHN that other people were present at the home at the time of Kellermann’s death, in Reston, Va., and that there was a gun and a gunshot wound. Kellermann’s wife told local police he committed suicide, Washington, D.C., television station WUSA reported, citing county sheriff’s deputies.

Full story at www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7014883629


29 posted on 04/23/2009 11:37:48 AM PDT by Liz (I was like Snow White, then I drifted. Mae West (on liberalism.)
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To: Liz

good lord...I wish they would get it straight. Gun or Rope? Not much reporting on this today. Rahm must have sent out the goons to kill the story ASAP.


30 posted on 04/23/2009 12:46:11 PM PDT by penelopesire ("The only CHANGE you will get with the Democrats is the CHANGE left in your pocket")
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To: pallis

The ‘other’ people in the house might have been the security firm he had hired to protect him from the ACORN thugs. I wonder if the particular security firm was recommended by Rahm or one of Obama’s goons (if you get my drift)? Just sayin....


31 posted on 04/23/2009 12:48:47 PM PDT by penelopesire ("The only CHANGE you will get with the Democrats is the CHANGE left in your pocket")
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To: khnyny
He was losing weight and telling friends that it seemed impossible to appease everyone — regulators, lawmakers, investors and other executives — given their competing demands.

What the hell did he expect? If you act like a Stakhanovite tool, you'll be treated like one and worked to death.

32 posted on 04/23/2009 12:51:05 PM PDT by Tijeras_Slim (When I leave this planet, it's gonna know I was here.)
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To: Liz

Indeed - thanks for posting.

Let’s not forget Franklin Raines and Barney Frank, either. The following is an interesting snippet:

http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/the-weiss-file/2009/04/20/congress-should-keep-its-cotton-pickin-hands-off-the-pecora-commission

FHFA letter, dated December 3, 2004, to Congressman Barney Frank: “On November 15, 2004 Fannie Mae filed a Form 12b-25 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Fannie Mae indicated that its external auditors could not complete their reviews of its financial statements and noted the possibility of up to a $9 billion loss dating back to 2001. As a result, OHFEO has determined it will not provide a monthly capital classification at this time.”

* Letter dated June 16, 2006, from OHFEO Director Lockhart to Senator Chuck Hagel: “...In January 1999, Chairman and CEO Franklin Raines approved a recommendation made by the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) (Tom Howard) and the Controller (Leanne Spencer) to defer recognition of $200 million in amortization expense. This deferral, along with other accounting decisions made at that time relating to provisions for loan losses and the recognition of low-income housing tax credits, allowed management to meet the EPS threshold for maximum bonuses.”


33 posted on 04/23/2009 2:29:16 PM PDT by khnyny ("The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.")
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To: penelopesire

Funny you should mention ACORN. After my last comment on this, I went to my throne to do some thinking, and it dawned on me that it could have been a bus load of ACORN thugs in his house. Maybe it was crowded; maybe some of them got into a fight over something they were stealing, and one of them shot another one. You know how things get out of hand. In the confusion, the mob decided to hang Kellerman. But then again, your goons theory could be right. Apparently, someone got hung, and someone got shot, and reporters haven’t made it to the story yet.


34 posted on 04/23/2009 2:45:36 PM PDT by pallis
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To: khnyny
Let’s not forget Franklin Raines and Barney Frank....

Fannie Mae 2003 Annual Report ----CEO Franklin Raines’ Letter to Shareholders
FR Posted 09/30/2008 by PAR

EXCERPT......Ten years ago, for example, the typical conforming mortgage required a down payment of 10 to 20 percent, and low-down payment mortgages were considered too risky. But then we helped to standardize the 3 to 5 percent down payment loan, brought it to global capital markets, and made it available to lenders and communities nationwide. Now low-down payment loans are commonplace. And we just adopted a new variance in our underwriting standards that will make the $500 down payment loan widely available as well...

In 1994, we pledged to provide $1 trillion in capital to ten million underserved families by the end of 2000. Thanks to our housing and industry partners, we met that goal early. Then in 2000, we launched our American Dream Commitment, a pledge to provide $2 trillion in capital to 18 million underserved families by the year 2010, including $400 billion targeted specifically for minority families (later raised to $700 billion in response to President Bush’s Minority Homeownership Initiative).

After four of the strongest years in housing and mortgage finance history, we’ve already surpassed the top-line goals of this commitment. But our work is far from complete.

So in January 2004, we announced our Expanded American Dream Commitment and pledged significant new resources to tackle America’s toughest housing challenges. Our new commitment has three main goals.

First, we will expand access to homeownership for six million first-time home buyers in the next ten years, including 1.8 million minority first-time home buyers. We also will help raise the national minority homeownership rate from 49 percent to 55 percent, with the ultimate goal of closing it entirely.

Second, we will help new and long-term homeowners stay in their homes through a series of initiatives, and commit $15 billion to preserve affordable rental housing and $1.5 billion to support the revitalization of public housing communities.

Third, we will increase the supply of affordable housing and support community development activities in at least 1,000 neighborhoods across the country through our American Communities Fund, and through targeted investments like Low-Income Housing Tax Credits that help finance affordable rental housing.

It is because of initiatives like our Trillion Dollar Commitment and our American Dream Commitment that we have exceeded our HUD affordable housing goals for ten consecutive years. And we have increased our financing of mortgages to African Americans by over 400 percent and to Hispanic Americans by 470 percent in the past ten years, compared with a 205 percent increase in overall financing.

Our Expanded American Dream Commitment will help us do even more.

===================================================

RAINING MONEY - CEO Franklin Raines is fired for cooking Fannie Mae's books---walks away w/ $90 million in perks and payouts

Proving you can fool most of the people most of the time until you get caught, Franklin Raines (seen here with Clinton), who reigned for 5 years following Clinton's appointing him as CEO of Fannie Mae, the US' quasi-governmental mortgage house, has been ousted.

There are several ongoing investigations of Fannie Mae's operations and accounting practices under Raines covering the last 5 years in order to determine when accounting irregularities started and the magnitude of the financial shortfalls. Current estimates indicate that there was a $9 billion misstatement of earnings and accounting irregularities between 2000-2004.

Former chief executive Franklin Raines received more than $40 million in bonuses and other pay as a result of falsely inflated earnings at the US' largest mortgage finance company. This is according to a supplement of a lawsuit filed by Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro.

Fannie Mae added "tens of millions of false revenue" to meet "Raines' 1999 publicly announced goal to double" earnings over the next five years, Petro's November 23, US District Court filing alleges. The filing alleges that, "Raines personally profited by over $40 million by this false earnings history.

35 posted on 04/23/2009 3:02:47 PM PDT by Liz (I was like Snow White, then I drifted. Mae West (on liberalism.)
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To: khnyny
Let’s not forget Barney Frank....

October 03, 2008
Lawmaker Accused of Fannie Mae Conflict of Interest
By Bill Sammon, FOX News' Washington Deputy Managing Editor.

WASHINGTON -- Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefited from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank’s efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s. So did Frank’s partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency’s push to relax lending restrictions.

Now that Fannie Mae is at the epicenter of a financial meltdown that threatens the U.S. economy, some are raising new questions about Frank's relationship with Herb Moses, who was Fannie’s assistant director for product initiatives. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie.

Both Frank and Moses assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest. Critics, however, remain skeptical."It’s absolutely a conflict," said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Business & Media Institute. "He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane?

"If this had been his ex-wife and he was Republican, I would bet every penny I have - or at least what’s not in the stock market - that this would be considered germane," added Gainor, a T. Boone Pickens Fellow. "But everybody wants to avoid it because he’s gay. It’s the quintessential double standard." A top GOP House aide agreed.

"C’mon, he writes housing and banking laws and his boyfriend is a top exec at a firm that stands to gain from those laws?" the aide told FOX News. "No media ever takes note? Imagine what would happen if Frank’s political affiliation was R instead of D?

Imagine what the media would say if [GOP former] Chairman [Mike] Oxley’s wife or [GOP presidential nominee John] McCain’s wife was a top exec at Fannie for a decade while they wrote the nation’s housing and banking laws."

Frank’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Frank met Moses in 1987, the same year he became the first openly gay member of Congress.

"I am the only member of the congressional gay spouse caucus," Moses wrote in the Washington Post in 1991. "On Capitol Hill, Barney always introduces me as his lover." The two lived together in a Washington home until they broke up in 1998, a few months after Moses ended his seven-year tenure at Fannie Mae, where he was the assistant director of product initiatives.

According to National Mortgage News, Moses "helped develop many of Fannie Mae’s affordable housing and home improvement lending programs." Critics say such programs led to the mortgage meltdown that prompted last month’s government takeover of Fannie Mae and its financial cousin, Freddie Mac. The giant firms are blamed for spreading bad mortgages throughout the private financial sector.

Although Frank now blames Republicans for the failure of Fannie and Freddie, he spent years blocking GOP lawmakers from imposing tougher regulations on the mortgage giants. In 1991, the year Moses was hired by Fannie, the Boston Globe reported that Frank pushed the agency to loosen regulations on mortgages for two- and three-family homes, even though they were defaulting at twice and five times the rate of single homes, respectively.

Three years later, President Clinton’s Department of Housing and Urban Development tried to impose a new regulation on Fannie, but was thwarted by Frank. Clinton now blames such Democrats for planting the seeds of today’s economic crisis. "I think the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was president, to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," Clinton said recently.

SOURCE http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,432501,00.html

=====================================

Let The Inquisition Start With Barney Frank
Investor's Business Daily | 3/6/09
FR Posted on 03/08/2009 by FreeManN

Congressman Barney Frank says he wants some of those responsible for our current financial meltdown to be prosecuted. And we couldn't agree more. First up in the court dock: Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.

Even by the extraordinarily loose standards of Congress, it takes some chutzpah for someone such as Frank to suggest that he'll seek prosecutions for those behind the housing and financial crunch and for what he called "a strongly empowered systemic risk regulator." Frank: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's point man in Washington.

For Frank, perhaps more than any single individual in private or public life, is responsible for both the housing market mess and subsequent bank disaster. And no, this isn't partisan hyperbole or historical exaggeration.

But first, a little trip down memory lane. (Excerpt) Read more at ibdeditorial.com ...

36 posted on 04/23/2009 3:06:54 PM PDT by Liz (I was like Snow White, then I drifted. Mae West (on liberalism.)
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To: mikelets456

what did he know?

something had to tip him over the edge


37 posted on 04/23/2009 6:36:17 PM PDT by Munz ("We're all here for you OK? It's a circle of love" Rham Emanuel)
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To: khnyny

I can only imagine what it has to be like working for a company seized and then run by this administration. Assuming reports are correct, he was an honest guy and a good man, what tipped the scales?

And yet Barney Frank denies any responsibility in the Freddie / Fannie mess. I’d like to see him deny it in front of Kellerman’s widw and five year old daughter.

And then there is the bonus issue. No matter what anyone’s opinion is of that, no one should have used it to make many of these people the most hated people in America. It is one thing to be angry. It is another thing to demonize them without a second thought.


38 posted on 04/23/2009 6:55:22 PM PDT by Protect the Bill of Rights
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To: Liz

Unbelievable. What have we become - a banana republic?


39 posted on 04/23/2009 7:03:24 PM PDT by khnyny ("The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.")
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To: Protect the Bill of Rights
Imhho, you're right - the bonus issue was, and is being used as a political stunt to demonize and advance an agenda. Despicable stuff.
40 posted on 04/23/2009 7:06:16 PM PDT by khnyny ("The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.")
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