Wells Fargo Exec Squats in Foreclosed Beach House

Senior VP Cheronda Guyton used house that belonged to Madoff victims

(NEWSER) - Wells Fargo said today it has fired the executive who turned a seized California beachfront mansion into a personal playground, the Los Angeles Times reports. Neighbors say they saw Cheronda Guyton staying in the $12 million Malibu Colony property, which had been turned over to the bank by a couple who’d been victims of the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme and needed the money to pay off other debts. More»

(NEWSER) - It's not been the best of years for the titans of Wall Street: a few federal bailouts, a housing collapse, and now a Ponzi scheme of mind-boggling proportions can do that. "Where did all that money go?" wonders the website wowOwow.com. And it has a partial answer: Straight into the mansions of bigwigs such as Bernard Madoff, Richard Fuld, and Daniel Mudd. For an aerial tour of their digs, along with a few others, click on the link below. More»

Shareholding activists demand end to foreclosures

(NEWSER) - Some 15 shareholders were arrested for disrupting Wells Fargo's annual shareholder meeting in San Francisco yesterday. The protesters—allowed in because they own Wells Fargo shares—were ejected after shouting over CEO John Stumpf's presentation about the bank's $15.9 billion profit in 2011, reports the San Francisco Chronicle . Hundreds of other protesters, including Occupy activists and people whose homes have been foreclosed, surrounded the downtown building where the meeting was being held. More»

25,424-square-foot mansion not going over well with residents of Great Falls

(NEWSER) - A man's home is his castle, nowhere more so than in the ritzy Washington, DC, suburb of Great Falls, Va. That's where one couple has elected to build their 25,424-square-foot mansion, dubbed "Le Chateau de Lumiere" and fashioned after the Palace of Versailles. The only thing bigger than the planned house? The brouhaha over it. The Post reports that the owner of the neighboring home—former Gannett honcho Craig Dubow—has filed a lawsuit against 38-year-old Young Yi, head of a sleep disorders treatment chain, and her husband, saying the home would destroy the "sylvan character" of the exclusive Hidden Springs neighborhood. More»

Wells Fargo, Bank of America may have reason to worry

(NEWSER) - Now that shareholders have rejected Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit's $15 million pay package, all eyes are on Wells Fargo and Bank of America, both of which are holding their own "say on pay" votes in the coming weeks. The votes are required as part of post-financial crisis financial reform laws, and though negative votes have been cast before, Citigroup marks the first big bank to suffer one. "If it can happen at Citigroup it can happen anywhere, particularly at other big financial firms," an AFL-CIO director tells the Los Angeles Times . More»