A top Freddie Mac executive apparently commits suicide

VIENNA, Va. - The chief financial officer of Freddie Mac, one of the mortgage giants at the heart of the nation's financial meltdown, was found dead in his basement early yesterday morning in what police said was an apparent suicide.

David Kellermann, 41, apparently hanged himself in his suburban Washington home, said a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation. He asked not to be identified because the investigation was continuing.

Kellermann was promoted in September when the government seized the mortgage company and ousted its top two executives.

Neighbors said Kellermann had lost weight under the strain of the new job. Some said they suggested to Kellermann that he should quit to avoid the stress, but he responded that he wanted to help the firm through its problems. The neighbors did not want to be quoted by name because they didn't want to upset the family.

Kellermann oversaw a staff of about 500 at Freddie Mac's McLean, Va., headquarters and was working on the company's first-quarter financial report, due by the end of May. Federal regulators closely oversee the company's books and sign off on major decisions.

That relationship had been tense and stressful, with Kellermann working long hours, a colleague said. Freddie Mac executives recently battled with federal regulators over whether to disclose potential losses on mortgage securities tied to the Obama administration's housing plan, said a person familiar with the deliberations who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Freddie Mac, which owns or guarantees about 13 million mortgages, has been criticized for financing risky loans that fueled the real estate bubble and are now defaulting at a record pace. The company lost more than $50 billion last year, and the Treasury Department has pumped in $45 billion to keep the company afloat. David Moffett, the government-appointed chief executive, resigned last month in frustration over strict oversight.

Kellermann worked for Freddie Mac more than 16 years, starting out as a financial analyst and auditor.

Freddie Mac and sibling company Fannie Mae have both come under fire from lawmakers because they plan to pay more than $210 million in bonuses through next year to give workers the incentive to stay in their jobs. Kellermann got $170,000 and was to receive $680,000 more.

Federal prosecutors in Virginia have been investigating Freddie Mac's practices. But two U.S. law-enforcement officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the Freddie Mac investigation, said Kellermann was neither a target nor a subject of the investigation and had not been under law-enforcement scrutiny.

Police responded to a 911 call at 4:48 a.m. at the Virginia home Kellermann shared with his wife, Donna, and 5-year-old daughter, Grace.

Kellermann graduated from the University of Michigan and was such a fan of the school's sports teams that he named his boat the "Wolverine Dream 2." He later went to business school at George Washington University.

Jeffrey Martin, a high school classmate from Bay City, Mich., recalled that Kellermann wanted to be Alex P. Keaton, the character played by Michael J. Fox on the 1980s TV sitcom Family Ties.

Kellermann "knew he wanted to climb the corporate ladder, and he climbed the corporate ladder," Martin said.