Miami Herald-Billionaire Candidate Pimped Sub Prime Mortgages

Florida's Democratic Senate candidate Jeff Greene: Miami Herald

(Story reported by Kris Hundley and Caryn Baird for the St. Petersburg Times)

RIDGECREST, Calif. — Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jeff Greene says he had nothing to do with creating the sub-prime mortgage mess that made him fabulously wealthy.

He was simply a savvy investor who "could see that the housing market was imploding" and lucky enough to make more than $500 million by betting against it.

But he wasn't just a spectator to the housing collapse. Four years ago, Greene was party to precisely the kind of deal that decimated the market.

Greene insists he did nothing wrong. Yet the way he handled the deal left an opening for massive fraud and put him uncomfortably close to a man now under federal indictment.

(click here to read the full story on the Miami Herald website)