Financier sentenced to 110 years in prison
Houston — R. Allen Stanford, the Texas financier convicted of fleecing 30,000 investors from 113 countries in a $7 billion Ponzi scheme, was sentenced Thursday to 110 years in jail.
Stanford, in a rambling statement to the court before the sentencing, intermittently fought back tears and shuffled papers, and said, “I’m not up here to ask for sympathy or forgiveness. I’m up here to tell you from my heart I didn’t run a Ponzi scheme.”
He blamed the government for the collapse of his businesses and asserted that “we could have paid off every depositor and still have substantial assets remaining.”
In response, U.S. prosecutor William J. Stellmach called Stanford’s version of events “obscene.”
“This is a man utterly without remorse,” Stellmach said. “From beginning to end, he treated all of his victims as roadkill. He went after the middle class, including people who didn’t have money to lose. People have lost their homes. They have come out of retirement.”
A federal jury in March convicted Stanford of 13 out of 14 counts of fraud in connection with a worldwide scheme over more than two decades in which he offered fraudulent highinterest certificates of deposit at the Stanford International Bank, which was based on the Caribbean island of Antigua.
Prosecutors argued that Stanford had consistently lied to investors, promoting safe investments for money that he channeled into a luxurious lifestyle, a Swiss bank account and various business deals that almost never succeeded.
Stanford’s defense lawyers pleaded for a sentence effectively of time served because of the three years he spent in prison waiting for his trial. Prosecutors recommended 230 years, the maximum according to sentencing guidelines for his crimes of conspiracy, wire and mail fraud, obstruction and money laundering. He was acquitted of one count of wire fraud.
The prosecutors heavily relied on James M. Davis, Stanford’s former roommate from Baylor University, who served as his chief financial officer. Davis testified that the Stanford business empire was a fraud, complete with bribes paid to Antiguan regulators and schemes to hide operations from federal investigators. He described how Stanford had sent him to London to send a fax to a prospective client from a bogus insurance company office to reassure him that his investment would be safe.
For Stanford, the verdict and sentencing represented the end of a remarkable career that began with a Texas fitness club venture. After it went bankrupt, he tried offshore banking and lived a life of glamour. Stanford is now a shadow of the swaggering financier who only three years ago had an estimated fortune of more than $2 billion, a knighthood awarded by Antigua and a collection of yachts and a fleet of jets. He even owned his own professional cricket team and stadium on Antigua.