The former head of a defunct lending company will pay $2.5 million to settle allegations that he and other executives defrauded investors in the wake of the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis. Michael Strauss, the former chief of the American Home Mortgage Investment Corporation, tried to conceal the company’s waning financial health, according the Securities and Exchange Commission complaint. Related lawsuits against Strauss and other former American Home Mortgage executives are still pending.