Antigua’s former top banking regulator, Leroy King, was ordered extradited to the U.S. to face charges he helped financier R. Allen Stanford conceal a $7 billion fraud scheme, Antigua’s top prosecutor said.
Director of Public Prosecutions Anthony Armstrong said that Chief Magistrate Ivan Walters ordered King removed to the U.S. in a decision issued today. Armstrong, who argued for the removal, said King has 15 days to appeal the decision to the nation’s High Court.
King was formerly chief executive officer of Antigua and Barbuda’s Financial Services Regulatory Commission. He has been under house arrest in Antigua since June, when he was indicted by a federal grand jury in Houston for allegedly accepting bribes from Stanford to mislead U.S. securities regulators.
His lawyer, Dane Hamilton Sr. of St. John’s, Antigua, did not immediately return a call seeking comment on the court’s ruling. Andy Laine, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, said he could not immediately comment.
U.S. prosecutors allege Stanford and his co-conspirators took money from new investors to repay earlier investors who bought allegedly bogus certificates of deposit from the Antigua- based Stanford International Bank Ltd.
Blood Oath
King and Stanford took a blood oath in 2003 to support the alleged fraud scheme, which netted King hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes, according to a document signed by former Stanford chief financial officer James M. Davis when he pleaded guilty to criminal charges in the probe last year.
Stanford, who is being held without bail pending a January 2011 trial, has denied all allegations of wrongdoing. He also faces parallel charges in a civil enforcement action filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The criminal case is U.S. v. Stanford, 09cr342, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas (Houston). The SEC case is Securities and Exchange Commission v. Stanford International Bank Ltd., 09cv298, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas (Dallas).
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