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R. Allen Stanford in ABC Interview Denies Running Ponzi Scheme
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(April 7, 2009 - Tuesday) - http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aHRtvcO.wC2k&refer=home
By Andrew M. Harris and Laurel Brubaker Calkins
April 7 (Bloomberg) -- R. Allen Stanford, the financier accused by a U.S. regulator of running a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, told ABC News he did nothing wrong and said he expects to be indicted by a grand jury in about two weeks.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Stanford and two business associates on Feb. 17, accusing them of running the fraud through Antigua-based Stanford International Bank.
Stanford, 59, said in the ABC interview that his business wasn’t a Ponzi scheme. Also named as defendants in the SEC lawsuit are James M. Davis, 60, chief financial officer of the Stanford Group Co., and that company’s chief investment officer, Laura Pendergest-Holt, 35.
“I will die and go to hell if it’s a Ponzi scheme,” he said in an interview excerpt broadcast yesterday on the ABC News Web site. “It’s no Ponzi scheme.”
He added, “If it was a Ponzi scheme, why are they finding billons and billions of dollars all over the place?”
Through a network of financial advisers, Stanford Group sold $8 billion in self-styled certificates of deposit while telling clients their funds would be placed primarily in easily sold financial instruments monitored by more than 20 analysts and audited by Antiguan regulators, according to the SEC.
Instead, the “vast majority” of the portfolio was managed by Stanford and Davis, who invested much of the portfolio in private equity and real estate, according to the commission.
Lawyers for Davis and Pendergest-Holt have said their clients are innocent. Davis’s attorney, David Finn, has said his client is cooperating with government investigators.
Pendergest-Holt on Feb. 26 was charged with obstructing the SEC’s probe. Her attorney, Dan Cogdell, denied that charge and said she had been cooperating with authorities until her arrest. She is free on $300,000 bond.
SEC Response
“We stand by our allegations,” SEC spokesman John Nester said yesterday in an e-mail.
Justice Department spokesman Ian McCaleb declined to comment.
“I’m going to fight this with everything in me,” Stanford said during the four-minute on-camera interview with ABC.
The SEC case is Securities and Exchange Commission v. Stanford International Bank, 09cv298, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas (Houston).
To contact the reporters on this story: Andrew Harris at the federal court in Chicago at aharris16@bloomberg.net; Laurel Brubaker Calkins in Houston at laurel@calkins.us.com.
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