Texas billionaire Stanford jailed in alleged $7B fraud

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Billionaire Stanford jailed in alleged $7B fraud


Jun 19, 9:26 PM (ET)

By DEVLIN BARRETT

WASHINGTON (AP) - Brash Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford was indicted and jailed Friday on charges his international banking empire was really just a Ponzi scheme built on lies, bluster and bribery.

The Justice Department announced charges against Stanford and six others who allegedly helped the tycoon run a $7 billion swindle. At a court hearing in Richmond, Va., a federal judge agreed with prosecutors that Stanford poses a flight risk and ordered him to remain in custody until a future detention hearing in Houston.

Among those charged were executives of Stanford Financial Group and a former Antiguan bank regulator who prosecutors say should have caught the fraud but instead took bribes to let the scheme continue.

Robert Khuzami, the enforcement director for the Securities and Exchange Commission, said investigators have built "an impressive criminal case from the rubble of this massive fraud."

If convicted of all charges in the 21-count indictment, Stanford could face as much as 250 years in prison, officials said.

Dick DeGuerin, Stanford's lawyer, said in a written statement that Stanford was "confident that a fair jury will find him not guilty of any criminal wrongdoing."

The indictment unsealed Friday in Houston charged Stanford and other executives at his firm falsely claimed to have grown $1.2 billion in assets in 2001 to roughly $8.5 billion by the end of 2008. The operation had roughly 30,000 investors, officials said.

Investigators say that even as Stanford claimed healthy returns for those investors, he was secretly diverting more than $1.6 billion in personal loans to himself.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090620/D98U3LGO0.html
 
Stanford Reportedly Had Link to Bidens

(Feb. 24) - A fund of hedge funds run by two members of Vice President Joe Biden's family was marketed exclusively by firms controlled by Texas financier Allen Stanford, charged by regulators with an $8 billion fraud, the Wall Street Journal said.

The $50 million fund was jointly branded between the Bidens' Paradigm Global Advisors LLC and a Stanford Financial Group entity, and was known as the Paradigm Stanford Capital Management Core Alternative Fund, the paper said.
Stanford-related companies marketed the fund to investors and also invested about $2.7 million of their own money in the fund, the paper said, citing a lawyer for Paradigm.
Paradigm Global Advisors is owned through a holding company by the vice president's son, Hunter, and Joe Biden's brother, James, according to the paper.

Paradigm's attorney, Marc LoPresti, who represents Hunter Biden and James Biden, as well as Paradigm, told the paper he did not know which Stanford entity invested the roughly $2.7 million.

He told the paper the Bidens never met or communicated with Stanford.
Joe Biden's office and the Securities and Exchange Commission could not be immediately reached for comment by Reuters.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE51N0VC20090224


Accused Swindler Stanford Owed Over $100 Million in Taxes
IRS Debt Did Not Stop Him from Donating Generously to Politicians

While accused billionaire fraudster R. Allen Stanford was showering U.S. lawmakers with cash, he was stiffing the IRS for over $100 million, court records show.

In 2002 and 2003, Stanford and his wife Susan ran up enormous tax debts, according to an IRS lien filed in a Texas court last July. There is no record indicating the lien, for $104,204,406.06, has been withdrawn. Stanford and his wife have been separated for years and are undergoing divorce proceedings.

In that same period, campaign finance records show Stanford personally gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to party committees and politicians, mostly Democrats, including:

$560,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

$100,200 to the National Republican Congressional Committee

$10,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

$100,200 to the National Republican Congressional Committee

$10,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

$4,000 to Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY)

$3,000 to Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT)

$2,000 to Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL)

$1,000 to now-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)

Last year, a month after the lien was filed, top Democrats were thanking Stanford at their convention in Denver for his firm's $150,000 contribution to sponsor a forum for a Democratic nonprofit. The organization said at the time it "had no reason to believe that a very public company that was also engaged in philanthropic work might be suspect."

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and every other party group did not respond to inquiries for this story.

http://money.aol.com/news/articles/_a/bbdp/stanford-reportedly-had-link-to-bidens/355884

LOL

Democrats and that culture of corruption strikes again.
 
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