Court papers lift lid on Stanford’s lifestyle

[seafan]

Source: Financial Times

The lavish lifestyle enjoyed by Sir Allen Stanford, the Texas billionaire charged by US financial regulators with “massive” investment fraud, has been laid bare by court documents from two years ago that emerged on Friday.

A $10m Florida mansion, bills of up to $75,000 for Christmas presents and childrens’ holidays, and a $100m fleet of private jets topped a list of Sir Allen’s outgoings and assets in the documents obtained by the Financial Times from a 2007 court case.

Details of his lifestyle emerged as the Federal Bureau of Investigation continued its probe into the billionaire’s affairs and allegations that his Antigua-based Stanford International Bank was at the centre of an $8bn fraud that may have drawn in tens of thousands of investors.
The criminal inquiry by the FBI and justice department is expected to resemble that of Enron seven years ago, when a special taskforce was formed to investigate allegations of criminal behaviour at the Houston-based energy company.

Sir Allen and two co-defendants had surrendered their passports to the US authorities, the Securities and Exchange Commission said on Friday.

Read more: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/40e8847e-ff81-11dd-b3f8-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1

---

Just the tip of the iceberg.

[bluestateguy]

1. I'm sick of this bullshit. He and Bernie Madoff should be lynched publicly

Either that or disappeared off to Guantanamo.

[FarCenter]

2. Maybe waterboarding isn't torture after all....

[acmavm]

15. Oh dang, I was feeling guilty for a split second that I had thought the very

same thing. I'm glad someone else does too. Not meaning that waterboarding is good but that I too wish we could go all Mideavil on their asses.

[Warpy]

5. Flogging through the streets first, please

and then to a cell with the door welded shut, on exhibit somewhere as a warning to other white collar thieves.

If anything comes out of this, it has to be exposing the collusion of the SEC.

I want that organization FIRED, all of them, and investigated for their parts in covering these thieves up while they harassed small timers in order to pretend they were earning their high salaries.

I want these bastards hounded for the rest of their lives.

[Double T]

3. No one should be allowed to amass this much power and wealth which typically leads to corruption.

Free market capitalism is criminal corruption.

[Baby Snooks]

8. Unregulated free market capitalism

Thanks to the deregulation of our economic system only the crooks have done well. As have their two patron saints. Phil Gramm and Bill Clinton.

[Double T]

10. aGREED on the patron saints!

[givemebackmycountry]

4. Like Bill Maher said on "Real time" tonight...

"Take two of these guys and blow them up at halftime of the Super Bowl, that would send a message"

[Lorien]

19. I'm generally strongly opposed to the death penalty but in these cases

I could be persuaded to change my mind! :grr:

[LiberalFighter]

6. Is this guy an American or British citizen?

If British, I say deport the sob after the serves prison time and pays financially. And never let the sob enter the USA again.

[seafan]

9. He's American. A native of Mexia, Texas.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aOm.ThdgS0YI&refer=home

[LiberalFighter]

11. If he gets to use the title of Sir with his name in the USA then

it should be required that shithead be used in addition to Sir.

[JohnyCanuck]

12. He is also a citizen of Antigua,

a former British colony in the Caribbean and now an independent country and a member of the British Commonwealth (an association of former British colonies). Some former colonies after gaining independence from Great Britain still maintain the practice of knighting citizens who have distinguished themselves in some field or endeavor or have provided to the country some significant public service. The PM of the country, like Antigua in this case, informs the Queen who he thinks deserves the honor of a knighthood and the Queen officially bestows the knighthood conferring on the recipient the right to put "Sir" in front of his name. Just as an FYI, past governments in Antigua (including the one in place when Stanford moved his operation to the island and which then asked Queen Liz to bestow a knighthood on the scoundrel) had earned a reputation throughout the Caribbean for their high level of corruption.

[JohnyCanuck]

13. Some more info on the Antigua connection to Stanford's empire.

Islanders count cost of billionaire's collapsed empire

Texan's influence and money reached every corner of Antiguan life


Sir Allen Stanford, the Texas billionaire, has been accused this week of a multiplicity of sins, from perpetrating an $8bn fraud to links with drugs running. So far, though, no one has thought to reproach him on grounds of modesty.

The reason why is obvious the moment a visitor steps out of the arrivals lounge at Antigua's international airport. Just to the left is the Stanford Cricket Ground, scene of last November's controversial Twenty20 match between the Stanford Superstars and England, with its $20m jackpot. Behind that is the Bank of Antigua, owned by Stanford. Straight ahead is a lavish colonial mansion with majestic columns and cascades of flowering bougainvillea, home of the Stanford International Bank where the alleged fraud is said to have been focused. To the right is the Sun, the largest newspaper in Antigua, proprietor: Sir Allen Stanford.

Go further to the right and you come to a port which Stanford has plans to develop. Once complete, it will be connected to a private arrivals centre at the airport, allowing Stanford to walk straight from his private jet to a deep sea marina where his super yacht will be waiting to carry him across to Maiden island - which he also happens to own.

As the banking and sporting empire that Stanford has built up over the past 30 years crumbles, with US financial regulators digging into his affairs and the FBI now involved, the spotlight has been on his international dealings. But for little Antigua this is personal. As the island's prime minister, Baldwin Spencer, once put it: "This man has a lien on our whole country."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/21/allen-stanford-banking-antigua-barbuda

[seafan]

7. Planes, 120-foot yacht, a castle and a Caribbean island.....

More from Bloomberg:

...The 58-year-old Stanford, who had an estimated net worth of at least $2 billion according to a March 2008 filing in a paternity case in Florida, faces claims by regulators that he defrauded investors while selling $8 billion in certificates of deposit issued by a bank in Antigua.

.....

No criminal charges have been filed against Stanford.

.....

Some of those assets, including private jets and a 120-foot yacht, were listed in filings in a paternity case filed by Louise Sage Stanford, the mother of two of the billionaire’s children. The FBI said yesterday that agents found Stanford in Virginia and served him with court papers related to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit. He was discovered with his girlfriend, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Stanford “owns a fleet of aircraft worth approximately $100 million,” said lawyers for Louise Stanford in a March 2008 filing seeking child support. While she adopted his name, the pair never married, and Stanford never contested that he was the father of the woman’s two children, according to court records.

“Needless to say, the children do not fly commercially for their travel,” the lawyers said in the filing in state court in Miami.

.....

In the Florida case, Stanford was identified as “the owner of banks in various countries and a brokerage firm, which has over 5,000 employees,” according to lawyers for Louise Sage Stanford.
“He also owns restaurants, airplanes and substantial real properties, including an island in the Caribbean,” the lawyers added in the March 2008 filing. The island wasn’t identified.

.....

Stanford, his girlfriend and their two children also once lived in the “Wackenhut Castle,” a three-acre estate in a Miami suburb that the billionaire bought for $10 million, according to the filing. Stanford, a native of Mexia, Texas, began using the title “Sir” in 2006 after being knighted by the leaders of Antigua & Barbuda.
The Coral Gables, Florida-home was built in 1974 by George Wackenhut, a former FBI agent and founder of Wackenhut Corp. That firm, now a unit of G4S Plc, provides security services to companies and governments.
The 18,000-square-foot, 57-room castle included a moat, tower, pub and a man-made cliff, according to a history of the estate written by Jerry Allison, owner of a Palm Beach, Florida- based architectural salvage firm. He’s offering some of the estate’s fixtures for sale, according to his Web site. .....
The castle was demolished in 2008, according to Ivan Rodriguez, a Coral Gables architect who is a former preservation official for the city.
“I’m not sure why it was demolished, but it was probably to make way for a bigger and better mansion,” said Rodriguez, a partner in R.J. Heisenbottle Architects PA.

.....

Stanford’s girlfriend and his children moved out of the castle in June 2004 and into a 12,000-square foot home that they rented for $25,000 a month, according to a March 2008 filing in the paternity case.
After the pair broke up, Stanford paid $850,000 a year in housing, food and private-school costs to ensure his children maintained their “privileged and luxurious lifestyle,” his girlfriend’s lawyers said in the March 2008 filing.
The amenities included a new Lincoln Navigator and driver available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to chauffeur the children, according to an October 2007 filing.

.....

Stanford is now embroiled in a divorce action in Texas, according to court records. Susan J. Stanford filed for divorce in November 2007, according to the filing in state court in Houston.

.....

The Houston-based Allshouse (Stanford's attorney) said he finds the fraud allegations against his client hard to accept.

“These allegations are shocking and hard to believe. He’s so charismatic, so personable, very likable,” the lawyer said in an interview in Houston yesterday. “My guess is he could walk into a room of people tonight, and if you didn’t know what was going on, you’d probably put money in his bank now.”

Many more disgusting details at the link.

[wroberts189]

17. ...and a 120-foot yacht..24 hour chauffeur ...my god nt

[bemildred]

14. More proof that P. T. Barnum was right.

"There's a sucker born every minute."

[Lasher]

16. Enron style criminal inquiry?

Then Allen will die of old age before he is taken to task, and his heirs will live in opulent luxury on the money he stole.

[mitchum]

18. A gold plated guillotine for that grifting motherfucker