Financier Allen Stanford Held Without Bond Pending Detention Hearing

By Jeralyn, Section Crime in the News
Posted on Fri Jun 19, 2009 at 08:58:04 PM EST
Tags: Allen Stanford (all tags)

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Billionaire financier Allen Stamford has been under investigation for months and represented by Dick DeGuerin of Houston, one of the country's best criminal defense lawyers. Yesterday, the Government chose to unseal the indictment against him, while he was in Virginia. The FBI knew exactly where he was -- at his girlfriend's home -- and arrested him there.

Today, Stanford appeared in court in Virginia and the Government announced it was seeking detention. The court ordered him held without bond until his detention hearing, which will be in Houston.

So Stanford, who is presumed innocent, will spend at least the weekend, and probably more, in jail waiting to be flown by the U.S. Marshal's Service to Houston. [More...]

Why couldn't they call DeGuerin and allow him to surrender Stanford in Houston? DeGuerin had been offering to surrender Stanford for weeks. If he was going to run, he would have done it by now. Also, according to DeGuerin:

"Since at least February of this year, Allen Stanford has been working with lawyers to meet and challenge the false accusations against him. Those accusations being that the Stanford companies were fraudulent and constituted a Ponzi scheme," DeGuerin said in a prepared statement.

"To the contrary, the present insolvency of the Stanford companies was caused by the SEC's heavy-handed actions, which have destroyed and continue to destroy much of the value of the Stanford companies and consequently the interests of investors."

The indictment is available here (pdf.)

Update: Check out this motion for fees filed by the law firm appointed as receiver in the SEC civil case against Stanford.(The motion was granted.)

For just under two months of work, the receiver asked for and received $19 million for itself and 14 other law firms and entities it hired. Of the $19 million, Baker, Potts got $5 million, a forensic litigation service company, FTI, got $6 million, and Ernest & Young got $3.5 million. That's just for fees, they got more for their expenses. Not bad for less than 60 days of work. And, they will be submitting bills monthly from now on.

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Financier Allen Stanford Held Without Bond Pending Detention Hearing | 9 comments (9 topical)

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Oh boo hoo hoo (none / 0) (#2)
by lobary on Fri Jun 19, 2009 at 09:30:14 PM EST

Poor Alan Stanford. The billionaire con-man has to spend a weekend in jail because the judge agreed with the prosecution that he's a flight risk. The judge's decision might have been influenced by Stanford's earlier attempt to flee to Antigua on the day the feds raided his offices.

i'm sure that had nothing (none / 0) (#3)
by cpinva on Fri Jun 19, 2009 at 10:13:54 PM EST

The judge's decision might have been influenced by Stanford's earlier attempt to flee to Antigua on the day the feds raided his offices.

to do with it, the judge was just being an old meany!

mr. stanford has been holed up in my neck of the woods for a while now, at his lady friend's house. good riddance to him, he screwed traffic up.

yes, innocent until proven guilty, no question. i'm glad he has extremely competent counsel, though i wonder who's funds are actually footing the bill?

I'm not easily shocked (none / 0) (#4)
by Spamlet on Fri Jun 19, 2009 at 10:22:34 PM EST

But I'm shocked by the indifference displayed here--by people who should and do know better--to the principle of presumed innocence. Wow.

Maybe a Smart Lawyer can make money on Stanford (none / 0) (#5)
by liberalpatriot on Fri Jun 19, 2009 at 10:52:26 PM EST

It would appear that an official of the Antigua government was involved, a Mr. Leroy King, see the Complaint at www.sec.gov . The allegation is one of active participation in the scheme, in fact without his assistance, the scheme would have failed.
Normally the government is not liable for a failure to act but here, through its employees it participated. If you go to the Crown Proceedings Act of Antigua you will see the government is liable for torts of its employees. http://www.laws.gov.ag/acts/acts-abc.htm#C
Now as you sit there bemoaning the attorney fees that the trustee's attorneys made, what about a contingent fee to collect the billions the government of Antigua may owe.
The wording of the Crown Proceedings Act is probably found in other British Jurisdictions and there may be Privy Council cases interptreting the law.
There should be no sympathy for the government as its members pranced around with Stanford and it allowed a bank to exist in its jurisdiction that had billions in assets and liabilties, far beyond what the government could insure.
I would suspect that the government or cronies were depositors in Stanford's Antigua bank and that is why it wants to control the receiver in Antigua.
Now finish your drink, or whatever your inhaling, and try thinking about getting the money

He prefers "Sir Allen" (none / 0) (#6)
by Radiowalla on Fri Jun 19, 2009 at 11:43:13 PM EST

and Boxer prefers "Senator."

I, like Bartleby the Scrivner, prefer not.

Jeralyn seems to think (none / 0) (#8)
by The Addams Family on Sat Jun 20, 2009 at 01:22:22 AM EST

that presumption of innocence is at least one part of the issue under discussion here:

So Stanford, who is presumed innocent, will spend at least the weekend, and probably more, in jail waiting to be flown by the U.S. Marshal's Service to Houston. Why couldn't they call DeGuerin and allow him to surrender Stanford in Houston? DeGuerin had been offering to surrender Stanford for weeks. If he was going to run, he would have done it by now.

: the comment you are replying to (none / 0) (#10)
by Jeralyn on Fri Jun 26, 2009 at 12:37:13 AM EST

was deleted for a personal insult to Dick DeGuerin, a very good friend of mine.

she at least earned (none / 0) (#9)
by cpinva on Sat Jun 20, 2009 at 03:37:01 AM EST

and boxer prefers "Senator."

her title honestly, more than can be said for mr. stanford.

perhaps so.

Maybe a Smart Lawyer can make money on Stanford

however, i would strongly recommend that a deposit against an hourly rate be secured, up-front, by the attorney. i suspect mr. stanford may not be in a position to pay later.

you're probably right liberalpatriot. antigua is one of those lovely tax haven countries, offering massive banking/finance secrecy to anyone (for a price, of course), no questions asked. i hope someone's on the ball, and is, as we speak, already working to secure those funds for the victims.

Thank You Allen Stanford! (none / 0) (#11)
by sirgerald on Mon Jul 06, 2009 at 09:56:09 PM EST

This is starting to make sense. Allen Stanford is listed as one of two owners of Elandia according to SEC filing. It appears that Allen Stanford has a merry band of thieves that operate in true "Stanford form". According to a SEC filing, Allen Stanford forced Sydney Trip Camper to resign from Elandia a few years back when a money deal went bad.

This story is getting better by the minute. I didn't realize just how far back Stanford goes. The Elandia SEC filing shows him as major shareholder with Kelton. Petty minions like Sydney Donald "Trip" Camper are part of this network of scammers. According to the SEC filing, Trip Camper was forced to resign from Elandia by Stanford himself a few years back because a deal went bad with a certain Mr. Ahkoy (see link below to see letter to board of directors). As any good con would do, Mr. Camper immediately moved on to another state, to his next victim - a privately owned "OTC" company.

According to a VERY reliable source: After a promise to take the company public, a free trip to London with his friends, a company Amex Credit Card, and thousands of dollars later, Mr. Camper managed to illegally get shares of the company stock signed over to himself and his partner in crime, Ed Berkhof. Eventually they performed a hostile takeover that was so illegal that only now do I understand the big picture and the history of their PONZI schemes - Sir Allen Stanford! Their pattern is to use other people's money to attract more loans, etc. Because they're actually using this loan money to pay themselves and their creditors, it caught up to them - finally!

Well Sir Allen Stanford is now in the hands of the FBI and I can't wait to see the way this story ends. I'm sure there will be plenty of finger pointing so I think I'll get some popcorn and watch the show. Bad boys bad boys, whatchu gonna do, whatchu gonna do when they come for you!!!!! Interesting links below.

http://www.secinfo.com/d14D5a.v6Q98.c.htm
http://www.secinfo.com/d14D5a.v5Fxp.c.htm
http://fsmprint.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/trip-camper-chairman-of-wealth-management-committee/