Mortgage giant Fannie Mae, gripped by an accounting scandal and under investigation by the Justice Department, disclosed Tuesday that prosecutors had asked the company to preserve documents as part of the criminal probe.

In a regulatory filing, the government-sponsored company also reported that it has been informed of eight lawsuits on behalf of shareholders that are being prepared or have been filed against it, chairman and chief executive Franklin Raines and chief financial officer Timothy Howard.

Several such suits have been announced since Sept. 22, when accounting questions at the company came to light amid news of a Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry into accounting at Fannie Mae, which finances one of every five home loans in the United States.

Fannie Mae said in its filing with the SEC that the U.S. attorney's office in Washington, which is pursuing the criminal investigation, had asked it to preserve certain documents -- including papers related to a report by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight which alleged earnings manipulation to meet Wall Street expectations and accounting improprieties by the company.

Raines and Howard, testifying at a House hearing last week, insisted that Fannie Mae did nothing wrong in its accounting and insisted that the regulators' allegations represent an arguable interpretation of complex rules. They specifically denied the allegation that, in an instance in 1998, accounting rules were deliberately violated so that top executives collect full bonuses.

Washington-based Fannie Mae is the second-largest financial institution in the country behind Citigroup Inc. It and its smaller sibling Freddie Mac pump money into the home mortgage market by buying and guaranteeing repayment of billions of dollars of home loans each year from banks and other lenders, then bundling them into securities that are resold to investors. Their stock and debt are widely held by investors worldwide. Last year, Freddie Mac restated some $4.5 billion in earnings, ousted top executives and was fined a record $125 million in a settlement with the federal regulators. Its restatement of earnings, which mostly had been understated, prompted the regulators to examine Fannie Mae's accounting.

Fannie Mae shares fell 42 cents to close at $68.26 Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange. It sank to a 52-week low of $62.95 last month.

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