Three former Countrywide Financial Corp. vice presidents Wednesday plead guilty to insider trading charges from nearly three years ago.

The three former executives, Jun Shi and Quan Zhu, both 43 and Alan Cao, 38, were charged with using insider information to financially benefit from stock they held in the mortgage lender, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles said Wednesday in a statement.

The former executives made profits of between $20,000 and $48,000 after they said they obtained confidential financial information that showed Countrywide would not meet Wall Street Analysts’ expectation for third quarter earnings in 2004. The men admitted they used the information to sell off their stock, to buy put options and, eventually, to short-sell the stock, in efforts to profit from a fall in the stock’s price, prosecutors said.

They face a statuary maximum prison term of 20 years but will likely be sentenced to far less than that, prosecutors said.

Shares in Countrywide fell 1.6 percent, or 60 cents, to $35.50 Wednesday in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The company’s shares have lost more than 14 percent this year.