Countrywide's Mozilo hires noted Wash DC lawyer

* Brendan Sullivan represented Oliver North, Dick Grasso

* SEC accused Mozilo of securities fraud, insider trading

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Angelo Mozilo, the former chief executive of Countrywide Financial Corp, has retained prominent Washington, D.C. lawyer Brendan Sullivan to help him defend against a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit accusing him of securities fraud and insider trading.

U.S. District Judge John Walter approved Sullivan's hiring on Monday, according to a filing with the federal court in Los Angeles. David Siegel, a partner at Irell & Manella LLP in that city, remains Mozilo's local counsel in the case.

Sullivan is a senior partner at the law firm Williams & Connolly LLP. He is perhaps best known for representing U.S. Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North in 1987 congressional hearings examining the Iran-Contra affair.

Among the clients he has successfully defended are former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, who won dismissal of charges he failed to properly report gifts, and former New York Stock Exchange Chief Executive Richard Grasso in litigation over his $187.5 million pay package pursued by two New York attorneys general, Eliot Spitzer and Andrew Cuomo. A New York State appeals court dismissed that case in 2008.

Sullivan did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

The SEC last June filed a civil lawsuit against Mozilo and two other former Countrywide executives, accusing them of misleading investors about the quality of Countrywide's loans, including subprime and adjustable-rate mortgages.

Countrywide had been the largest U.S. mortgage lender before liquidity dried up in the summer of 2007, leading to its 2008 acquisition by Bank of America Corp (BAC.N).

The insider trading charge concerned Mozilo's alleged realization of more than $139 million of profit by exercising more than 5.1 million Countrywide stock options in 2006 and 2007, as the lender's decline began and then accelerated.

Siegel has said he expects Mozilo to be vindicated once all the evidence is in.

Mozilo and former Bank of America Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis are the most prominent U.S. corporate officers charged by U.S. regulators with wrongdoing in connection with the housing, credit and financial crises that began surfacing in 2007.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed civil fraud charges on Feb. 4 against Lewis over the Merrill Lynch & Co acquisition.

The case is SEC v. Mozilo, U.S. District Court, Central District of California, No. 09-3994. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel and Alexandria Sage)