[5] In 1969, he and his former mentor David S. Loeb, who had already started a mortgage lending company, founded Countrywide Credit Industries in New York.

For years afterward, Mozilo denied that the subprime mortgage industry bore any responsibility for the crisis, instead attributing it to a credit crunch.

[14] Mozilo testified before the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on March 7, 2008, calling reports of his pay "grossly exaggerated" in some instances and pointing out that he lost millions as well.

Mozilo agreed to pay $67.5 million in fines, and accepted a lifetime ban from serving as an officer or director of any public company.

[19] In June 2008, Conde Nast Portfolio reported that several influential lawmakers and politicians, including Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, and former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson, received favorable mortgage financing from Countrywide by virtue of being "Friends of Angelo".

[20][21] Democratic Senator Dodd received a $75,000 reduction in mortgage payments from Countrywide at allegedly below-market rates on his Washington, D.C., and Connecticut homes.

Alphonso Jackson, acting secretary of HUD at the time and long-time friend and Texas neighbor of President Bush, received a discounted mortgage for himself and sought one for his daughter.

Barbara Boxer, Adam H. Putnam, Richard C. Holbrooke, James E. Clyburn, and Donna Shalala are among those with mortgages from Countrywide.

CBS News obtained a list of then-Fannie Mae employees whose names have been turned over to investigators as having received VIP loans from Countrywide.

[25][26] In the documentary film Inside Job, Mozilo is cited as one of the persons responsible for the economic meltdown of 2008[7] and named in Time magazine as one of the "25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis".

[27] Condé Nast Portfolio ranked Mozilo second-worst on their list of "Worst American CEOs of All Time".

[a][28] In the 2011 four-part investigative series Meltdown, Al Jazeera named Mozilo as one of the people responsible for the trend of making subprime loans to borrowers with poor credit history.