Joe Nocera at the NY Times has a strange tale in his story entitled In Prison for Taking a Liar Loan:
Mr. Engle’s is a tale worth telling for a number of reasons, not the least of which is its punch line. Was Mr. Engle convicted of running a crooked subprime company? Was he a mortgage broker who trafficked in predatory loans? A Wall Street huckster who sold toxic assets?
No. Charlie Engle wasn’t a seller of bad mortgages. He was a borrower. And the “mortgage fraud” for which he was prosecuted was something that literally millions of Americans did during the subprime bubble. Supposedly, he lied on two liar loans.
What are your thoughts? Did Mr. Engle get what he deserved? Did the IRS agent go too far to catch this guy? A strange tale indeed.
