R. Allen Stanford, the Texas billionaire accused by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of running a “massive” fraud through his investment businesses, said he has no money to hire an attorney.
Stanford has “been unable to retain counsel due to all of my assets and money having been seized by the actions of the court-appointed receiver,” he said in a March 30 Dallas court filing that was posted on its Web site today.
The SEC sued Stanford and two associates on Feb. 17, accusing them of running a multibillion-dollar fraud through Antigua-based Stanford International Bank. Denying the SEC’s allegations, Stanford, 59, also said the court should transfer the case to Houston where he has a home.
Also named in the SEC suit were the bank’s chief fiancial officer, James M. Davis, 60, and Laura Pendergest-Holt, 35, who was chief investment officer for the Stanford Financial Group.
In February, U.S. District Judge David Godbey froze the assets of the Stanford companies and those belonging to Stanford, Davis and Pendergest-Holt and placed them under the control of court-appointed receiver Ralph Janvey.
Davis is “fully cooperating” with all federal investigations, his lawyer, David Finn, has said. Pendergest- Holt on Feb. 26 was arrested by U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and accused of obstructing the SEC’s probe.
Criminal Charges
The only person criminally charged in the case, she is free on a $300,000 bond. Her lawyer, Dan Cogdell, said she is innocent and that she had been cooperating with investigators until her arrest.
Stanford, a Mexia, Texas, native who was knighted by the government of Antigua and Barbuda in 2006, was ranked by Forbes Magazine last year as the 605th richest person in the world.
He has an estimated net worth of at least $2 billion, according to a March 2008 filing in a Florida paternity case brought by a mother of two children.
Last week, Stanford asked Houston criminal defense lawyer Dick DeGuerin to represent him, although he couldn’t pay him a formal retainer. DeGuerin said at the time he wouldn’t represent Stanford for free.
“We prepared that filing for him,” DeGuerin said today in an after-hours phone interview. “It’s plain vanilla because he hadn’t had any money to defend himself.”
DeGuerin said he didn’t submit the document on Stanford’s behalf because “in the federal court system, any lawyer that signs onto a case is in for the duration.”
DeGuerin declined to say how much he would charge to defend Stanford, saying his legal services are “cheap at any price.”
The case is Securities and Exchange Commission v. Stanford International Bank Ltd. 09cv298, in the Northern District of Texas.
To contact the reporters on this story: Andrew Harris at the federal court in Chicago: [email protected], and Laurel Brubaker Calkins in Houston at [email protected].
Source:http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a8gbr5bA5wxI
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