If ever there was a corporate version of the Titanic going down, this would it. Even as shareholders of Countrywide Corp. gathered in Calabasas to approve the sale of the company to Bank of America, the Attorney Generals of California and Illinois filed lawsuits suing Countrywide and CEO Angelo Mozilo (background) for unfair and deceptive conduct. Here's the copy of the California suit from the WSJ and this is a copy of the Illinois compaint against Countrywide.

"Countrywide exploited the American dream of homeownership and then sold its mortgages for huge profits on the secondary market," Attorney General Brown said in a statement. "The company sold ever-increasing numbers of complex and risky home loans, as quickly as possible. Countrywide was, in essence, a mass-production loan factory, producing ever-increasing streams of debt without regard for borrowers. Today’s lawsuit seeks relief for Californians who were ripped off by Countrywide’s deceptive scheme."

In addition to CFC and Mozilo, the California lawsuit also names David Sambol, Countrywide's CFO, as a defendant along with Countrywide Home Loans (CHL) and Full Spectrum Lending Inc., a Countrywide subsidiary which became a devision of CHL in December 2004.

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, redacts confidential information Countrywide provided during the attorney general’s investigation. The attorney general is seeking the company’s consent to file an amended complaint that removes the redactions.

Meanwhile, Illinois AG Lisa Madigan's office filed a lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court in Illinois alleging "unfair and deceptive conduct on a large scale in creating, originating, marketing and servicing unnecessarily risky and costly mortgage loans for Illinois homeowners."

In the press release, Madigan says that "Countrywide created risky and costly loan products and marketed them to borrowers who could not afford them. Countrywide’s unfair lending practices have harmed tens of thousands of borrowers who’ve been placed in unaffordable loans and, as a result, our communities are now being destabilized by a skyrocketing number of home foreclosures."

And while Countrywide is taking these legal shots across its bows, shareholders in a special meeting at Calabasas, CA, where the company is based, approved its merger with a wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of America in an all stock transaction by a wide margin. The merger is expected to close on July 1, 2008, pending the satisfaction of "customary closing conditions".