Bank of America and Countrywide’s "Hustle"

This final note, in which the federal government gets a rare financial crisis legal win.

A jury in Manahattan found Bank of America guilty of a single count of civil fraud related to defective mortgages sold by Countrywide Financial, the subprime lender Bank of America bought in 2008 as the storm was gathering.

Federal prosecutors are asking for $850 million in damages, which is what they say Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lost when Countrywide unloaded bad loans.

Not that this is dispositive, as lawyers like to say, but Bank of America might have known it was in trouble when it learned the nickname Countrywide used for the mortgage packaged: Hustle.