Former board of directors chairman of Stanford International Bank (SIB), Allen Stanford has been sentenced to a total of 110 years in prison for orchestrating a 20-year investment fraud scheme in which he misappropriated $7 billion from SIB to finance his personal businesses.
The sentencing was announced by Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney Kenneth Magidson of the Southern District of Texas; FBI Assistant Director Kevin Perkins of the Criminal Investigative Division; Assistant Secretary of Labor for the Employee Benefits Security Administration Phyllis C. Borzi; Chief Postal Inspector Guy J. Cottrell; and Chief Richard Weber, Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigations (IRS-CI).
Stanford, 62, was convicted on 13 of 14 counts by a federal jury following a six-week trial before U.S. District Judge David Hittner and approximately three days of deliberation. The jury also found that 29 financial accounts located abroad and worth approximately $330 million were proceeds of Stanford’s fraud and should be forfeited.
Speaking on behalf of the victims in the case during the sentencing hearing today were Angie Shaw, the director and founder of the Stanford Victims Coalition, and Jaime Escalona, who represents Stanford victims from Latin America.
In handing down the sentence, Judge Hittner remarked that “this is one of the most egregious frauds ever presented to a trial jury in federal court.”
After considering all the evidence, including more than 350 victim impact letters that were sent to the court, Judge Hittner sentenced Stanford to 20 years for conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud; 20 years on each of the four counts of wire fraud, as well as five years for conspiring to obstruct a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation; and five years for obstruction of an SEC investigation. Those sentences will all run consecutively. He also received 20 years for each of the five counts of mail fraud and 20 years for conspiracy to commit money laundering, which will run concurrent to the other sentences imposed today, for a total sentence of 110 years.
For more details regarding this case you may log onto: http://www.fbi.gov/houston/press-releases/2012/allen-stanford-gets-110-years-for-orchestrating-7-billion-investment-fraud-scheme
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