Jailed Texas swindler suspect R. Allen Stanford unveiled his latest legal tactic to get free: Prosecutors failed to tell me what I've done wrong. So there!
A year after charging the billionaire in a $7 billion Ponzi scheme, the Securities and Exchange Commission has failed to disclose any basic case, said Stanford's lawyers in a new bid to an appeals court for his release.
"We've looked really hard at the latest complaint, and it's 32 pages long but it doesn't really have any specifics about what Allen Stanford said, to whom he said it or how the SEC even has jurisdiction over the CDs, because they're not securities," Stanford lawyer Christina Sarchio told Bloomberg.
But it didn't fly, and a US appeals court in Houston turned down his freedom bid for a second time.
Stanford's trial is set to begin in January 2011.
Stanford, 59, was jailed nearly eight months ago without bail, due to his possible flight risk. Courts said he's likely to flee the US, since he holds a passport for the tiny Caribbean island of Antigua, which also has knighted him as Sir Allen for planting a global bank there and holding immense personal wealth on the island.
In one earlier attempt to get free for the Christmas holidays, Stanford unsuccessfully argued that he's cracking up behind bars and simply must get out for a family visit.
Stanford did manage last year to get moved from a Texas hellhole cell into a cushy federal lockup in Houston after a cellmate broke his nose and blackened his eye.
RSS Jailed Texas swindler suspect R. Allen Stanford unveiled his latest legal tactic to get free: Prosecutors failed to tell me what I've done wrong. So there.
A year after charging the billionaire in a $7 billion Ponzi scheme, the Securities and Exchange Commission has failed to disclose any basic case, said Stanford's lawyers in a new bid to an appeals court for his release.
"We've looked really hard at the latest complaint, and it's 32 pages long but it doesn't really have any specifics about what Allen Stanford said, to whom he said it or how the SEC even has jurisdiction over the CDs, because they're not securities," Stanford lawyer Christina Sarchio told Bloomberg.
But it didn't fly, and a US appeals court in Houston turned down his freedom bid for a second time.
Stanford's trial is set to begin in January 2011.
Stanford, 59, was jailed nearly eight months ago without bail, due to his possible flight risk. Courts said he's likely to flee the US, since he holds a passport for the tiny Caribbean island of Antigua, which also has knighted him as Sir Allen for planting a global bank there and holding immense personal wealth on the island.
In one earlier attempt to get free for the Christmas holidays, Stanford unsuccessfully argued that he's cracking up behind bars and simply must get out for a family visit.
Stanford did manage last year to get moved from a Texas hellhole cell into a cushy federal lockup in Houston after a cellmate broke his nose and blackened his eye.
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