Angelo Mozilo, CEO of Countrywide (NYSE: CFC) may be a thug and he may get in trouble with federal authorities due to the way he ran his company. But at least he was generous.

According to The Wall Street Journal, everyone from casino employees to retired pro athletes got sweet deals. The paper writes that, Mr. Mozilo regularly lined up loans for people he met, according to several current and former Countrywide executives. Said one: "Angelo would call in and say, literally, 'My maid needs a loan.'"

Mozilo even gave a loan to the buyer of hockey player Wayne Gretsky's home.

The big open question about these mortgages is whether the people could have gotten them in the normal course of business, or was Mozilo's help necessary. He also may have made certain that his pals got below market rates.

Based on most of what has come out about Mozilo's behavior, he should probably give back those tens of millions of dollars in cash he got from stock options.

And perhaps, spend a few years in the pen.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.