THE fifth anniversary of Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy has occasioned one legacy-spinning defense after another. We’ve heard from Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve; Henry M. Paulson Jr., the Treasury secretary at the time; and Timothy F. Geithner, then the New York Fed president and later Mr. Paulson’s successor at Treasury, about their historic decisions to use trillions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to bail out the banking system.

But will we ever know what really happened behind all those closed doors? The seemingly appalling treatment afforded Richard M. Bowen III, a former Citigroup executive who blew the whistle on years of malfeasance there, shows that we may not. Thanks to political pressure and the revolving door between Washington and Wall Street, the events leading up to the financial crisis remain obscured and may never be fully revealed.

Read on.

Widow faces foreclosure on reverse mortgage she says she didn’t understand

Barbara Freeman will never forget what it was like the day a slick banker sat down at the kitchen table in the only house she’s ever owned.

Mike Sullivan, a man whose business card identified him as a Wells Fargo reverse mortgage consultant who worked out of Greensboro, and a partner explained the workings of a deal that he said could provide much needed cash to Freeman and her husband, Roy.

“I didn’t understand really anything about it,” she said. “But they made it sound good, and they told us I could stay in the house even if something happened to Roy.”

The bankers thought they might be interested in what they were selling — a high-interest reverse mortgage that would provide them with nearly $25,000.

Despite misgivings, the Freemans took the deal. But instead of a worry-free retirement…

Writing with the flu. Despite symptoms and medication that makes me dizzy, I feel compelled to write about something that is getting traction out there. The more you look at the false claims of securitization the more it stinks. We are dealing with a system that is based on really big lies. I’m sure our leaders of government have a very appealing rationalization why we must pretend the mortgage bonds are real, why we must pretend the mortgages are real, why we must pretend the notes are real, and why we must pretend the debts and defaults are real. But those are lies based on sham transactions. And those lies are based in public policy. And public policy is contrary to law.

My focus is on cases pending in the judicial branch of government. Our system of government was designed to insert the judicial branch into disputes so that fractures…

Bradley Birkenfeld, the former UBS banker credited with helping break open Uncle Sam’s investigation into secret untaxed Swiss accounts, is about to be $104 million richer.

The Internal Revenue Service has recommended that Birkenfeld receive that impressive amount after he has now served around two and a half years in federal prison for a fraud conspiracy conviction related to the case.

It’s the largest whistleblower amount ever awarded by the IRS.

Birkenfeld’s insider info helped the IRS collect more than $5 billion in unpaid taxes from foreign banks and nearly 15,000 individuals who used their services to avoid paying U.S. taxes, as well as was a motivator in the Swiss government decision to change its tax treaty with the United States and turn over the names of more than 4,900 U.S. taxpayers who held illegal offshore accounts.

In addition, since the UBS investigation began, more than 35,000 taxpayers have…

Orlando couple wins $3M award from Citigroup, one of largest in recent years

A federal regulatory panel has awarded more than $3 million to an Orlando couple in a case that accused banking giant Citigroup Global Markets Inc. and a former local broker of negligence in getting the couple to invest in ill-fated land deals.

The panel found the Citigroup unit liable for its broker’s actions and said the company must pay $3.1 million in compensatory and punitive damages and other costs, according documents released this week by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.