Stanford Financial Group’s Chief Investment Officer Laura Pendergest-Holt formally denied she defrauded investors in what regulators claim was an $8 billion Ponzi scheme run by billionaire R. Allen Stanford.
In court papers filed late yesterday, Pendergest-Holt, 35, denied every allegation in the civil fraud suit filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission against her, Stanford and Chief Financial Officer James M. Davis.
The SEC sued the three Stanford executives and two affiliated companies on Feb. 17, accusing them of orchestrating a “massive ongoing fraud” through the sale of high-yield certificates of deposit through Antigua-based Stanford International Bank.
“Laura has filed her answer to the SEC’s claims, and she plans to aggressively fight back,” said Jeffrey Tillotson, her lawyer, in a phone interview today.
Pendergest-Holt has also been charged with criminal obstruction of the Stanford investigation, the only criminal charges yet filed in connection with Stanford Financial Group.
In denying the SEC’s claims, Pendergest-Holt said all her actions were taken in “good faith reliance” upon the advice of her attorneys, who aren’t named in the filing.
Malpractice Complaint
In a separate state-court suit, Pendergest-Holt has accused Stanford’s former general counsel Mauricio Alvarado, the company’s former outside counsel Thomas Sjoblom and his firm Proskauer Rose LLP of legal malpractice.
In that complaint, she blames the lawyers for failing to advise her of potential legal pitfalls, her right to have her own personal lawyer, and her right to refuse questions during an early February meeting with SEC investigators probing the company’s investment portfolio and returns.
She claims she was arrested Feb. 26 on obstruction charges because the company’s lawyers misled and misrepresented her. She was released on $300,000 bond. Her lawyer, Dan Cogdell, said she is innocent and has agreed to extend the government’s deadline to formally indict her until May 12.
Allen Stanford, 59, has denied all wrongdoing and is fighting a court-ordered freeze on all his personal and corporate assets. Davis, 60, is cooperating with investigators and is in plea negotiations to resolve his civil and potentially criminal liabilities, according to his attorney David Finn.
SEC spokesman Kevin Callahan and Justice Department spokesman Ian McCaleb declined to comment. The case is SEC v. Stanford International Bank, 3:09-cv-00298- N, in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas (Dallas).
To contact the reporter on this story: Laurel Brubaker Calkins in Houston at [email protected] .
Source:http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=azjfrxBl09xY
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