Angelo Mozilo, who led Countrywide Financial Corp to America’s largest mortgage lender before the 2008 financial crisis, has died, his family foundation said.
Mozilo, 84, died of natural causes, the foundation said in an announcement on Sunday.
He became the face of the mortgage crash when the subprime crisis hit in 2007.
He was the son of a Bronx butcher who embodied a rags-to-millionaire success story.
In 2006, when Mozilo was the head of mortgage lender Countrywide Financial, the company made $461 billion in loans, of which nearly $41 billion was subprime loans.
Subprime loans were liable for the global financial crisis.
The corporate was later purchased by Bank of America for $2.5 billion, lower than 10% of its value in early 2007.
Mozilo has also been accused by securities regulators of insider trading and securities fraud.
Once named one of the best CEOs in the United States, the disgraced CEO was subsequently named the second worst US CEO of all time by Conde Nast Portfolio.
Bloomberg previously reported on news about Mozilo’s death.
Mozilo has repeatedly defended itself against allegations that it was a key architect of the 2007-2009 financial crisis.
“One way or the other, for some unknown reason, I used to be blamed for it,” he said earlier.