Laura Pendergest-Holt, the former chief investment officer for Stanford Financial Group, pleaded not guilty today to charges of obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Pendergest-Holt, 35, is the first Stanford figure to be criminally indicted out of the wide-ranging fraud investigation into the Houston-based banking and financial services network. Lawyers involved in the case expect most other charges to also be filed in Houston, which has been the center of the criminal investigation.
Chairman R. Allen Stanford has said he expects to be indicted, and Chief Financial Officer James Davis is cooperating with investigators, his lawyer has said.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Milloy set a July 20 trial date for Pendergest-Holt. She is scheduled to be tried by U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore.
“We’re looking forward to trying the case as soon as possible,” said Dan Cogdell, her lead criminal lawyer and one of five lawyers with Pendergest-Holt and her husband Jim today. Pendergest-Holt’s assets were frozen in February when she was sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and lawyers are trying to find ways to get some of those assets unfrozen to pay their fees.
Cogdell stressed that though the government has been talking to Davis since she was initially charged in February, it has not added significant new facts or charges against Pendergest-Holt in the indictment this week. He said that’s because she’s innocent and they don’t have any more.
“The basis of our defense is she didn’t agree to lie, she didn’t plan to lie and she didn’t lie,” Cogdell told the media gathered around the courthouse around noon, after Pendergest-Holt filled out all the necessary paperwork.
He said his client, who will be moving to North Carolina from Mississippi, has been going through a difficult time. Cogdell said she’s not cooperating with authorities now because when she did at the beginning of the case, they turned around and “threw her to the wolves” by accusing her falsely.
Lawyers close to the case expect that the government will supersede the indictment against Pendergest-Holt before that trial date and add Stanford and possibly one or two others.
The indictment against her states one of her co-conspirators in trying to obstruct the SEC investigation of Stanford Financial is a man they called “Attorney A.”
That attorney is Thomas Sjoblom, who practices in New York and Washington, and who Pendergest-Holt has sued for $20 million, accusing him of legal malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty.
Sjoblom was present both at a Miami meeting where the government alleges a cover up was discussed and at Pendergest-Holt’s Feb. 10 interview with the SEC under oath, the center of the charges against her.
Each of the two criminal charges against Holt carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Prosecutor Gregg Costa agreed that Pendergest-Holt could remain free on a bond. One of her lawyers, Chris Flood, told Milloy that he will move to have Pendergest-Holt taken off a monitoring device.
Source: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/6423911.html
Artículos Relacionados: