By Matthew Boyle - The Daily Caller
Marjorie Rawls Roberts, who has pledged to raise between $100,000 and
$200,000 for President Obama's 2012 campaign, has faced heat in recent
months after news reports confirmed that she helps her wealthy clients
navigate the kinds of offshore tax benefits the president has publicly
criticized. And now The Daily Caller has learned exactly who some of those
wealthy clients are.
Roberts helped recently convicted $7 billion Ponzi schemer R. Allen Stanford
with his application for tax benefits from the U.S. Virgin Islands Economic
Development Corporation. Those benefits permit recipients to avoid paying
some - or all - of their taxes, as long as they live in the U.S. territory
for the majority of a given tax year and fulfil certain financial and
development obligations to the local economy.
The Virgin Islands Daily News reported that Stanford applied for those tax
breaks in 2006, and that the territory's current governor, Democrat John de
Jongh, approved the application after taking office in 2007.
Stanford, who was convicted of defrauding 30,000 of his investors with bogus
investments in his Antiguan bank while living a lavish lifestyle from the
spoils of his scheme, owes hundreds of millions in back taxes. In early
2009, the Associated Press reported that the federal government placed four
tax liens against Stanford, totalling about $212 million, between 2007 and
2008.
Attorney General Eric Holder praised Stanford's conviction during a March
2012 Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing. "Just this week, we secured
a conviction against the former board of directors' chairman for an
international bank [Stanford Financial Group], orchestrating a $7 billion
investment fraud scheme," Holder said in his testimony.
Even so, the Obama re-election campaign continues to accept bundled
donations from the tax attorney who helped Stanford navigate the Virgin
Islands' tax loopholes.
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