“A federal judge in Manhattan said a $1.27 billion fine against Bank of America Corp. over an old mortgage-lending program known as Hustle should stick. Bank of America had asked that the decision be overturned or that the company be given a new trial, arguing that a jury in 2013 was wrong to find the bank liable for fraud. But in his decision Tuesday, Judge Jed Rakoff wrote that “the jury’s conclusion that this was a massive and intentional fraud was amply supported by the evidence.” The Hustle case revolves around a civil lawsuit the U.S. attorney’s office of Manhattan filed against Bank of America in 2012. It alleged that a precrisis Countrywide Financial Corp. program called Hustle had churned out shoddy mortgages with a focus on quantity, not quality, and then misrepresented those loans when selling them to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac .” Full article »