CitiGroup Ordered to Cough Up $158 Million

MANHATTAN (CN) – CitiGroup will pay $158.3 million to the United States to settle False Claims Act violations involving HUD- and FHA-insured mortgages, federal prosecutors said.      U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero approved the settlement Wednesday, involving CitiGroup and its CitiBank and CitiMortgage divisions.     The bank admitted it violated HUD loan requirements for 6 years.     The damages and penalties were extracted under the False Claims Act and the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989.     The bank admitted that it submitted “HUD-FHA certifications stating that certain loans were eligible for FHA mortgage insurance when in fact they were not,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement.