By Laurel Brubaker Calkins and Andrew M. Harris
June 27 (Bloomberg) -- R. Allen Stanford, accused of swindling investors in a $7 billion fraud, will be held in jail through the weekend until a June 29 hearing on whether an order granting him bail should be reversed.
The request to delay the Texas financier’s release on bail was filed yesterday with U.S. District Judge David Hittner, who outranks U.S. Magistrate Judge Frances Stacy and to whom the Stanford criminal case is ultimately assigned. Stacy, at a June 25 hearing, set the bail at $500,000 and required Stanford to post a $100,000 cash deposit.
Hittner ordered the government to file a formal motion to revoke Stanford’s bail by 9 a.m. on June 29, and set oral arguments on the motion for 10:30 a.m. the same day.
“Allen Stanford has demonstrated his desire to stand and fight, and not run,” Dick DeGuerin, Stanford’s lawyer, said in a phone interview after yesterday’s ruling. “I haven’t talked to him, but of course he’s disappointed” he will remain in jail through the weekend, DeGuerin said.
Stanford pleaded not guilty on June 25 to accusations he swindled at least 30,000 investors in a scheme involving the sale of certificates of deposit through his Antiguan bank.
He faces 21 counts of conspiracy, fraud, obstruction and money laundering. Prosecutors accuse him and five other people of working to mislead investors about the nature and oversight of the certificates, which were sold through the financier’s Antigua-based Stanford International Bank Ltd.
SEC Lawsuit
A federal grand jury indicted Stanford on June 18 on charges mirroring allegations made by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in a lawsuit filed in February against him, two colleagues and three of his businesses. Stanford was arrested that evening in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where he was staying while meeting with lawyers about the civil complaint.
Stanford has denied any wrongdoing in the civil lawsuit. “I’m not a damn swindler,” he told Bloomberg News in an interview on April 20.
When Stacy approved Stanford’s bail after a six-hour bond hearing, prosecutors asked for a delay to give them time to appeal.
“The stay is appropriate because there is a strong likelihood that the extraordinary flight risk indicators in this case will lead this court to order Stanford’s detention or, at a minimum, set a substantially higher bond,” prosecutors said in their request yesterday.
‘Government Over-Exaggerates’
“The government over-exaggerates any risk of flight,” DeGuerin said in a response opposing the government’s motion to put on hold the bail order. “Allen Stanford through his own conduct has affirmatively demonstrated his intention to appear for trial.”
DeGuerin said Stanford’s friends and family had gathered the $100,000 cash deposit required to bail the financier out of jail. Stacy ordered that the deposit be contributed by friends and family and not drawn from Stanford’s funds.
“I think he’ll be very motivated not to flee if he raises the money from friends and relatives,” Stacy told lawyers when setting Stanford’s bail.
Court records show the deposit was received yesterday.
Ian McCaleb, a Justice Department spokesman, declined to comment on Hittner’s decision.
The criminal case is U.S. v. Stanford, H-09-342, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas (Houston). The SEC case is SEC v. Stanford International Bank, 3:09-cv-00298-N, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas (Dallas).
To contact the reporters on this story: Andrew M. Harris in Chicago federal court at aharris16@bloomberg.net; Laurel Brubaker Calkins in Houston federal court at laurel@calkins.us.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment