Texas tycoon Allen Stanford spent more than 20 years charming investors, who handed him billions of US dollars they had spent their lives accumulating through hard work and saving.
Stanford promised them safe investments that would help fulfill their dreams of being able to retire comfortably or pay their children’s college tuition. All the while, he was pulling their money out of his Caribbean bank to pay for a string of failed businesses and a jet-setting lifestyle.
Stanford, once considered one of the wealthiest people in the US, with a financial empire that spanned the Americas, was convicted on Tuesday on charges he bilked investors out of more than US$7 billion.
Prosecutors said his business acumen was nothing more than an old-fashioned pyramid scheme and jurors convicted him on 13 of 14 charges, including conspiracy, as well as wire and mail fraud. He was acquitted on a single count of wire fraud that accused him of bribing a regulator with Super Bowl tickets.
Stanford looked down when the verdict was read in federal court in Houston, Texas, where his financial empire was based. His mother and daughters hugged one another and one of his daughters started crying.
“We are disappointed in the outcome. We expect to appeal,” Stanford attorney Ali Fazel said after the hearing.
He said he could not comment further because of a gag order US District Judge David Hittner placed on attorneys in the case.
Prosecutors and Stanford’s relatives declined to comment on the verdict, but former investor Cassie Wilkinson found comfort in it.
“As an investor, you have to doubt whether or not you were stupid or just taken advantage of. This relieves that doubt. It’s a vindication,” said Wilkinson, 62, who lives in Houston.
A civil trial in which prosecutors hope to seize about US$300 million from more than 30 Stanford-controlled accounts in countries including Switzerland, Britain and Canada started later on Tuesday before the same jury. Hittner will likely set Stanford’s sentencing date after the civil trial, which could last as little as a full day.
Jurors have been told not to comment on the case until the civil trial ends.
The most serious charges against Stanford carry up to 20 years in prison, and if Hittner ordered him to serve his sentences consecutively, the 61-year-old could spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese