Stanford Lawyer Culpable

Antigua St. John's - Ralph Janvey, the court appointed received for Stanford assets in the United States, has launched a ‪query‬ against a former Stanford attorney and two law firms suing them over claims they aided the $7 billion Ponzi scheme.
And the Stanford Victims Group has used the platform to remind the courts here in Antigua to consider similar actions.

Janvey filed the application last Friday in a Dallas Federal Court, accusing Thomas Sjoblom, the lawyer, and Proskauer Rose LLP, where Sjoblom was a partner from 2006 to 2009, and Chadbourne & Parke LLP, where Sjoblom was a partner from 2002 to 2006, of aiding and abetting Stanford’s fraudulent scheme, according to a Bloomberg news report.

R. Allen Stanford was convicted to serve 110-years in prison in March 2012 of stealing more than US$2 billion from depositors at his bank based here in Antigua. And for using the funds to finance a lavish personal lifestyle that included private jets, yachts and mansions.

According to news report, the attorney in question allegedly joined a “conspiracy” in the summer of 2005 at Stanford’s headquarters in Houston, Texas, to allegedly obstruct a U.S. Securities Exchange Commission investigation into the Ponzi scheme.

“Sjoblom, who had 20 years of experience as a senior lawyer in the SEC’s Enforcement Division, spent the next four years delaying and obstructing the investigation by lying to the SEC,” Janvey said.

Caribarena sought a comment on the matter from Attorney General Justin Simon, specifically looking for insights on whether or not similar suites could be repeated against Stanford’s attorneys here in Antigua. But the AG declined to comment.

A spokesperson from the Stanford International Victims group has however announced that the victims were pleased to see that some of the people who (allegedly) sold their integrity and honesty to Allen Stanford for the sake of making a fast dollar are now in the firing line of the receiver Ralph Janvey.

“The courts in the US and Antigua need to show that no matter whoever you are or wherever you are from, no one is above the law. These people are accused of making lots of money off the backs of the victims by turning a blind eye and therefore allowing and assisting Stanford to carry out his massive Ponzi scheme. If they are guilty then they assumed the risk and as lawyers they should know more than anyone that crime does not pay,” the spokesperson said.

In the meantime, the receiver is accusing the lawyer of falsely stating that he had personally confirmed Stanford Financial wasn’t a Ponzi scheme, instructing Stanford Financial to hide documents from the SEC, misrepresenting the existence and nature of the SEC’s investigation to Stanford Group Co.’s auditors, and offering false testimony to the SEC.





For a full and open debate on the Stanford Receivership visit:

http://sivg.org.ag/

The Stanford International Victims Group Forum

Central Bank relinquishes control of ECAB

Source: Observer News

The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) has relinquished control of the Eastern Caribbean Amalgamated Bank (ECAB), formerly Bank of Antigua after more than two years.

The ECCB intervened in February 2009 after a run on the indigenous bank by depositors threatened its stability and that of the entire Eastern Caribbean Currency Union.

The central bank said at that time it had taken the step after “an unusual and substantial withdrawal of funds.”

This came on the heels of the indictment of former owner Allen Stanford who is accused of masterminding a seven billion US dollar Ponzi scheme.

Some of the Bank’s assets were used by the Eastern Caribbean Amalgamated Bank (ECAB) which began operating in October 2010.

ECAB comprises five of the largest regional banks across the currency union.

In a notice in Saturday’s Daily OBSERVER newspaper, ECCB Deputy Governor Trevor Brathwaite stated that it had relinquished control of the bank effective November 11, 2011.

The statement read: “The Central Bank shall relinquish control of the Bank and shall not continue to carry on the business of the bank where it has sold or otherwise disposed of the property, assets and undertakings of the Bank.”

The official said this indicates a successful transition from the troubled entity to ECAB.

It was further stated that a receiver would continue to manage and liquidate the remaining assets and liabilities of Bank of Antigua.

David Becker was the Securities and Exchange Commission's top lawyer, but he could not keep Bernie Madoff away from his own mother

By AL LEWIS

When she died in 2004, she left Mr. Becker and his siblings an estate that included a $2 million Madoff account. His father had made the investment, originally. Didn't his parents ever get a fake statement in the mail and say, "Hey, this is great. Maybe we should show our son, the securities lawyer?"

Mr. Becker's parents died not knowing how the investment would turn out. Mr. Becker's brother liquidated the account in 2005 to pay estate taxes, also not knowing.

Mr. Becker informed his boss, SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro, and the SEC's ethics office, after Mr. Madoff finally confessed to running the world's greatest Ponzi scheme right under the SEC's nose. Oh, he was some character -- taking money from a regulator's mom. But Mr. Becker's colleagues at the SEC told him not to worry about it.

Mr. Becker went right on dealing with Madoff matters, influencing such questions as how much victims should receive in compensation from the Securities Investor Protection Corp. and whether Congress should limit clawback lawsuits in Ponzi schemes.

Nobody said anything about his mom's Madoff loot.

"It simply did not occur to me then that his mother's account, closed years ago, could present a financial conflict of interest," Ms. Schapiro told Congress last week.

This is the sentence that Ms. Schapiro should have used to start off her resignation speech.

Despite her vast regulatory experience and legal training, she doesn't seem to have any idea what happens after a Ponzi scheme implodes: A bankruptcy trustee sues everyone who ever took a fictitious profit so that the money can be divided up fairly among all the victims.

The SEC, which preaches disclosure, never said a word until, inevitably, Mr. Becker was hit with a clawback lawsuit. Turns out $1.5 million of the $2 million in his parents' account were fictitious profits, according to SEC Inspector General David Korz, who has turned the matter over to the Justice Department to see whether criminal conflict-of-interest laws were violated.

"I thought it doubtful that the trustee would institute a clawback action against me," Mr. Becker told Congress last week.

Mr. Becker has already left the SEC. So this is the sentence where he should have begun his announcement to resign from the practice of law. All those Madoff victims, out all that money, and they were never going to knock on his door for the $1.5 million? Hey, stop paying the bank while you're at it, Mr. Becker. Maybe they won't foreclose on your home.

"For those who think I acted in my financial interest, I would point out that I took a pay cut of over 90% to return to the SEC," Mr. Becker told Congress. "I ... forfeited millions of dollars to serve my country."

Cue the John Philip Sousa music here. Mr. Becker should have taken the millions he could have earned in private practice and left the country alone.

The SEC's job is to root out deadly conflicts of interest in America's corporations. But Mr. Becker and Ms. Schapiro couldn't smell them in their own office.

Records Show Meeks Sought Favours for Pal from "Ponzi" Tycoon

By ISABEL VINCENT and MELISSA KLEIN

The e-mail was flagged “Importance: High.” A top executive at the Stanford Financial Group wanted an answer.

“Have we an update on Antigua?” demanded Lionel C. Johnson, a senior VP.

“Greg Meeks and Ed Ahmad have both called again this afternoon inquiring about the status of Ahmad’s VIP-box invitations.”

The Feb. 19, 2008, e-mail, obtained by The Post, was addressed to Yolanda Suarez, chief counsel for the company run by now-disgraced billionaire banker Allen Stanford. It and other insistent messages during that period show Queens Rep. Gregory Meeks was determined to get his pal, Edul Ahmad, invited to a Caribbean cricket match so he could meet another Meeks buddy, Stanford.

The urgent pleas were made a year after Ahmad handed Meeks $40,000.

Stanford would also throw cash at the congressman a few months later -- hosting a lavish fund-raiser in St. Croix in July 2008, complete with Cristal champagne and caviar, that raised at least $13,800 for Meeks’ campaign committee.

Now the circle of friends threatens to become a circle of felons.

Stanford, 61, is awaiting trial on charges he engineered a $7 billion Ponzi scheme. Ahmad, 43, was indicted this summer in New York, accused of falsifying $50 million in loan applications. And Meeks, 57, is under investigation by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct for the $40,000 Ahmad payment and is at the center of a separate federal probe for his role in a Queens nonprofit that allegedly stiffed Hurricane Katrina victims.

Meeks, an eight-term congressman, has a penchant for hobnobbing with shady characters and had few qualms about accepting their cash -- or doing them favors.

Stanford, a flamboyant businessman from Texas who once ran a bodybuilding gym in Waco, took over the family financial business. He also started his own bank in 1985 on the island of Montserrat and later moved his operations to Antigua. Forbes ranked him as the 205th-richest American in 2008, with an estimated worth of $2.2 billion.

Meeks’ relationship with Stanford dates back to at least 2003, when the congressman and his wife traveled to Antigua and Barbados on a junket sponsored by the Inter-American Economic Council, a Washington, DC, nonprofit backed by Stanford. It would be the first of many trips to sunny climes that Meeks and his wife, Simone-Marie, would take on the nonprofit’s dime.

Meeks sits on both the House’s Financial Services and Foreign Affairs committees and belonged to the Caribbean Caucus, an informal group of lawmakers Stanford sought to woo.

The economic development of the Caribbean, and the US Virgin Islands in particular, has been Congressman Meeks’ focus for over a decade,” Johnson, an executive in charge of government affairs at Stanford Group, wrote in an e-mail exhorting company employees to attend the July 2008 fund-raiser. Ticket prices began at $1,000 for the soirée at Stanford’s hilltop compound in St. Croix.

Eighty guests dined on lobster, caviar and foie gras and sipped Cristal and Mondavi Opus 1, a Napa Valley red that retails for $200 a bottle. An organizer of the party said the cost of the catering alone topped $25,000.

But, records show, the Meeks campaign reimbursed Stanford for only $3,591.

Stanford company employees donated $7,200, and Stanford himself gave $4,600. The company’s PAC kicked in another $2,000. The total take for the fund-raiser appears to be $34,000, according to campaign finance records.

The Texas receiver for the victims of Stanford’s alleged Ponzi scheme is seeking to claw back the $6,600 donated by Stanford and the company’s PAC, along with money Stanford gave to other pols, including Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel.

“Representative Meeks has not returned any of the money requested. The receiver asked Representative Meeks to join the dozens of other politicians and political committees who have returned their Stanford-related contributions,” said Kevin Sadler, the attorney for the receiver.

Sadler said he is in talks with Rangel’s lawyer to return the money, which included $8,300 to the Rangel campaign and $2,500 to his National Leadership PAC. Both Meeks and Rangel have said in the past that they gave the donations to charity.

In 2006, Stanford called in a chit for his generosity, asking Meeks to use his influence with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The billionaire wanted Meeks to tell Chavez to begin a criminal investigation into a whistleblower at Stanford’s Venezuelan bank.

Meeks allegedly was heard on a speakerphone telling Stanford he would intervene with Chavez, according to the Miami Herald.

Meeks was soon in Venezuela visiting Chavez, ostensibly to thank him for providing cheap home heating oil to Americans. A year later, the whistleblower was arrested.

While Meeks was meeting with Chavez, there were already grave concerns among US government officials about Stanford’s reputation. The US ambassador to Barbados attended a “Legends of Cricket” breakfast along with Stanford in Bridgetown and tried to avoid being photographed in public with him.

“His companies are rumored to engage in bribery, money-laundering and political manipulation,” read a May 2006 diplomatic cable about the breakfast meeting, released last month by WikiLeaks.

When Stanford was knighted in Antigua in 2006, the title was so controversial that the country’s prime minister called the honor “most unfortunate.”

Stanford was indicted in June 2009 on charges of perpetrating a $7 billion fraud by selling certificates of deposit that promised inflated rates of return. He is currently being held at a medical center in the feds’ Butner, NC, prison, the same lockup holding Ponzi king Bernie Madoff. Stanford was declared incompetent to stand trial in January because of an addiction to prescription medication, but he is expected to be re-evaluated.

Meeks refused to answer any questions about his relationship with Stanford, or why he agreed to introduce Ahmad to the billionaire.

Both men have an interest in cricket. Stanford owned a cricket team and stadium, and Ahmad sponsored his own cricket competition in New York.

Meeks and Ahmad are longtime friends. The congressman held after-hours meetings with the real-estate broker at his Queens district office, and Ahmad boasted that he had his own personal political representation.

Meeks claims the $40,000 he pocketed from Ahmad was a loan, but a House ethics panel said it appeared to be a gift. Meeks paid back the money in 2010, but only after federal investigators questioned Ahmad about it.

Like Stanford, Ahmad’s businesses were long dogged by allegations of scandal, including predatory lending and forged documentation. State authorities launched five probes into his real-estate operations between 2006 and 2008.

Ahmad, who is currently out on $2.5 million bail and prohibited from traveling to his native Guyana, faces up to 30 years in prison. The government has said that additional charges or more defendants are likely in his case.

Kings of Queens

Allen Stanford

Texas billionaire in jail awaiting trial on charges he ran an $7 billion Ponzi scheme. Accused of selling certificates of deposit promising improbably high interest rates. Big-time political donor, whose nonprofit Inter-American Economic Council hosted Caribbean junkets for members of Congress, including Meeks. Held a 2008 St. Croix fund-raiser for Meeks.

Congressman Gregory Meeks

An eight-term Democratic congressman representing Queens, Meeks is the subject of a House ethics probe for accepting a $40,000 payment from Queens businessman Edul Ahmad in 2007. Also under federal investigation for his role in a Queens charity. Arranged for Ahmad to meet banker Allen Stanford, for whom Meeks did favors, including personally lobbying Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Edul Ahmad

Queens real-estate broker and catering hall owner indicted on charges of mortgage fraud. Accused of falsifying $50 million in loan applications. Currently out on $2.5 million bail. Denied permission by the feds to travel to his native Guyana. Longtime friend of Meeks. Sought introduction Stanford through Meeks.

Stanford's Victims Still Waiting For SEC Decision on SIPC COver

Scott Cohn
Senior Correspondent, CNBC

The Securities Investor Protection Corporation, the agency that insures U.S. brokerage accounts, said it is still deciding whether to reverse an earlier decision to deny coverage to tens of thousands of investors in Allen Stanford's alleged $7 billion Ponzi scheme.

SIPC had promised a decision this week, after the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this year threatened a lawsuit if SIPC continued to deny the coverage.

The SIPC board has been meeting since Thursday, but in a statement Friday, Chairman Orlan Johnson said the board "is continuing its careful review of the many and complex issues in the Stanford case."

As a result, some 30,000 investors remain in limbo. A court-appointed receiver who has been rounding up assets since Stanford's financial empire was shut down in early 2009 has so far recovered just pennies on the dollar. For many investors, the SIPC coverage represents their only hope of recovering much of anything.

"It is very disappointing to have even further delays in recovering the life savings of thousands of middle class retirees after waiting more than two and a half years for the protections Congress intended for SIPC to provide," said Angela Shaw of the Stanford Victims Coalition in a statement e-mailed to CNBC.

The agency initially refused to cover the Stanford accounts because the certificates of deposit at the heart of the alleged scam were drawn on Stanford's offshore bank in Antigua. But the investors, and eventually the SEC, argued the CDs were sold by Stanford's registered broker-dealer in the U.S.

In June, the SEC, under heavy pressure from investors and members of Congress, called on the SIPC board to reverse its decision, and threatened to sue SIPC in federal court if it refused.

"Credible evidence shows that Stanford structured the various entities in his financial empire...for the principal, if not the sole, purpose of carrying out a single fraudulent Ponzi scheme," SEC staffers wrote, meaning there was no distinction between Stanford's Indian bank and his U.S. broker dealer.

In response, SIPC promised its board would decide at its September 15 meeting whether to reverse itself.

In today's statement, SIPC chairman said, "We fully appreciate the gravity of this matter and remain committed to reviewing it thoroughly and with all deliberate speed."

An SIPC spokesperson would not say how soon a decision would be made.

Allen Stanford’s Amnesia: Haven’t We Seen This Soap Opera Before?

By Shira Ovide

We read with interest our colleague Michael Rothfeld’s story about the amnesia suffered by convicted Ponzi schemer R. Allen Stanford. He now claims he can’t remember anything that happened prior to his 2009 arrest.

It’s been nagging us. We couldn’t quite remember: Where had we seen this before? (Pause for the joke to set in. Theeere you go.)

Yes, the ol’ “I cannot recall, Senator” line has been held out by troubled defendants before, and not just in the plot lines of daytime soap operas.

In 1990, former Guinness chairman and CEO Ernest Saunders was convicted with three others for a scheme to prop up the company’s stock price during a 1986 takeover battle for liquor company Distillers Co. –maker of Tanqueray gins and Johnnie Walker Scotch.

But shortly after his five-year conviction was set, the 55-year-old Saunders said he was in the early stages of dementia. Saunders was freed on parole after serving just 10 months.

After he was released, however, Saunders recovered enough to return to the business world. He said his memory problems and other symptoms were caused by anti-depressants he took in jail.

The British press referred to the Saunders affair as the “alcoholic Dallas.” Given Allen Stanford’s penchant for cricket, maybe we’ll call his sudden memory deficiency the “forgetful wicket.”

Grant Thornton First Report Of The Joint Liquidators

SIB First Report of the JLs 120811

Weston Calls for FSRC

This is an interesting article from the Caribarena. Note the highlighted sections where the minister is asking about the report into the FSRC!

Antigua St John's - Opposition Senator Lennox Weston spoke at length on Monday against the need for additional board members to be added to the Financial Regulatory Services Commission (FSRC), and called for the release of the controversial report into the Commission ordered following the R Allen Stanford debacle.

Weston told the Upper House, "The government is our government. It is our money that the government is spending, and the prime minister gave an undertaking to Parliament and to the nation that he would review the sector, and he would table the results, and let the chips fall where they may."

He said it now seemed that the UPP administration intends to keep the contents of the review away from the public.

"Now it seems as if, what is before us is indicating that the government intends to keep its review a secret. Whatever the review says... that we hear that is very bad, it intends to keep it a secret from the people of Antigua & Barbuda, although we are faced with all these pending charges, and all kinds of lawsuits against us ..."


Weston noted, however, that with Stanford investors intent on suing Antigua & Barbuda for its perceived role in the financier's workings, the government was leaving the door open for these investors to reveal information "piece by piece" in the American press, with Antigua & Barbuda lacking the means to defend its reputation.

"The Americans always say, get ahead of the news," Weston noted. "Get it out early, and move on. ... This is not a time when we can hide information. ... We can't control information by tabooing it. And this has been going on for way too long."

Weston, along with other opposition senators, cried down the government's proposal to increase the FSRC board from four members to seven, saying the bill did not adequately explain the need for this.

Subsequent government senators, including Joanne Massiah and Dr Edmond Mansoor, posited that this was a necessary move to allow the FSRC to handle its additional responsibility to regulate non-banking financial institutions including the credit unions.

Two Year Anniversary Brings Flood of Stanford Lawsuits

Source: Scott Cohn (CNBC)

Two years to the day after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accused billionaire banker R. Allen Stanford of running a $7 billion Ponzi scheme, investors and a court-appointed receiver have unleashed a flood of lawsuits — including one targeting a top government official in Antigua where the alleged scam was based.

The following statement is condemned by Stanford International Victims Group

Another suit seeks the return of more than $7 million in Stanford contributions to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and its charitable arms.

Stanford International Victims are Demanding the Committee Retract the Law Suit and issue a public apology

A spokeswoman said St. Jude had accepted the contributions "in good faith."

Other claims target Stanford board members, organizers of major sporting events funded by Stanford, and The Golf Channel, which is owned by NBCUniversal parent Comcast [CMCSA 25.13 0.97 (+4.01%) ]. A spokesman for the Golf Channel declined to comment since officials had not yet seen the complaint.

The suits come as investors scramble to meet a two-year statutory deadline for claims, in a process that has yielded little for Stanford's 28,000 investors. Stanford himself has denied wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, 36 former Stanford employees, sued by the receiver in 2009 seeking the return of their bonuses and other compensation, today countersued the receiver, Dallas attorney Ralph Janvey. The suit accuses Janvey of so badly mismanaging the receivership that it has cost investors and the employees hundreds of millions of dollars, and destroyed the employees' careers.

"This damage is massive and will continue for years into the future," the countersuit says.

The countersuit says the employees plan to contribute any proceeds from the claim to a fund for victims—including themselves. It says the employees understood Stanford's business to be legitimate, and had invested millions themselves. The suit also repeats an earlier claim by Stanford that a prominent brokerage firm had offered $500 million to purchase the company's operations following the SEC suit, though the suit cites no specific evidence of the offer. It claims Janvey ignored the advice of an industry consultant to accept the alleged offer, denying hundreds of millions of dollars in proceeds to the victims.

An attorney for Janvey, Kevin Sadler of the law firm Baker Botts, denied there was any opportunity to sell the Stanford operations.

"The suggestion that a brokerage firm which operated at the heart of a Ponzi scheme could be sold to anyone in the weeks or months after the SEC filed its securities fraud lawsuit, defies logic, common sense, and the facts," Sadler said in a statement e-mailed to CNBC.

"The defensive claims by the former Stanford financial advisors, all or whom received substantial payments from Stanford, are baseless," the statement says.

Janvey this week reported he has recovered just $188 million in cash for investors out of more than $7 billion that is missing. But in a court filing on his behalf, Janvey's attorneys blamed the small recovery on a "difficult, protracted and expensive" process, as well as the complexity of the alleged Stanford fraud. Janvey has filed some $600 million more in claims including those filed today. Another $300 million or so is believed to be in foreign accounts, according to the filing.

Among the lawsuits filed Wednesday is a $1 million claim by the Official Stanford Investors Committee against Antiguan Minister of National Security Errol Cort, who until 2009 was the Caribbean nation's Finance Minister and oversaw Stanford's offshore bank at the heart of the alleged fraud.

"Antigua's 'regulation' of the Stanford entities was a sham," the lawsuit says.

As Finance Minister, Cort was responsible for Antigua's Financial Services Regulatory Commission. The former head of that agency, Leroy King, was indicted in 2009 for allegedly accepting bribes from Stanford. King is fighting extradition to the U.S.

A spokesperson for Cort told CNBC the Minister had not yet seen the investors' lawsuit and would have no immediate comment.

Other suits name tennis' ATP Tour and the International Players Championship, neither of which could be reached for comment. Previous suits have targeted golf's PGA Tour and the NBA's Miami heat, neither of which has responded in court.

Another case filed today seeks $2 million from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank that has previously issued reports on Stanford. The center had no immediate comment.

Meanwhile, some investors are directing their ire at the Securities and Exchange Commission, following an internal report last year that found the agency was aware of issues at Stanford as early as 1997. Many investors have begun the process of suing the agency for negligence by filing notices with the SEC's General Counsel. An SEC spokesman would not say how many notices the agency has received, and declined to comment on the allegations.

Bush's ambassador to eastern Caribbean protected Stanford operations

August , 2010 -- Bush's ambassador to eastern Caribbean protected Stanford operations

Antigua became the favorite playground for CIA money laundering during Bush administrations...

http://www.voltairenet.org/article166496.html

http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2008/10/afghan-pipeline-by-steve-galster-2.html

Mary K. Ourisman, the Texas-born socialite wife of Maryland car dealer Mandy Ourisman, helped provide diplomatic and legal cover for jailed former Stanford International Bank chief Allen Stanford, according to Stanford insiders who spoke to us. Mary Ourisman was George W. Bush's ambassador to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean States, which include Antigua and Barbuda, the headquarters for Stanford's one-time global banking and financial services empire that collapsed in 2009 after it was discovered to be a Ponzi scheme.... Stanford is in prison in Texas and has been refused bail as a flight risk -- Stanford is also a citizen of Antigua and Barbuda. He is scheduled to go on trial in January 2011, conveniently two months after the congressional election in November. Stanford's campaign contributions fell into the coffers of congressional members of both Democrats and Republicans.

However, as we previously reported, Stanford International Bank, Bank Al-Madina in Lebanon and Billions of syphoned monies from the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns, also became a replacement for the collapsed Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) as a vehicle for drug money laundering and other covert operations on behalf of the CIA and other intelligence agencies....

Mary Ourisman, a political fundraiser for Bush and other GOP candidates and a close friend of former First Lady Laura Bush, became U.S. ambassador to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean States in 2006. In her job, Ourisman ensured that Stanford's financial operations in Antigua and Barbuda, as well as in two other Caribbean nations where she was credentialed as ambassador, St. Kitts-Nevis and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, were protected from federal regulators.

To provide even more protection for Stanford's money laundering and other covert operations, Stanford showered GOP and Democratic senators with large campaign contributions, including $83,000 for John Cornyn of Texas and $950,000 for the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, and particularly, Bob Menendez of New Jersey. Menendez, who maintains close connections to the Cuban exile community in Florida and new Jersey and its CIA/MOSSAD veteran operatives, has refused to investigate the Stanford fraud on behalf of its victims and has tried to block any Senate investigation of Stanford's links to the CIA/MOSSAD and top government officials, Democratic and Republican.

It is also noteworthy that Texas was the only U.S. state to have entered into a financial regulatory agreement with Antigua. The Texas Department Banking and the Antigua and Barbuda International Financial Sector Regulatory authority signed the agreement on July 26, 2001. More amazingly, the agreement was signed while Antigua was subject to a U.S. Treasury advisory warning of potential fraud.

Ourisman sat idly in Bridgetown, Barbados as Antigua's Attorney General, Errol Cort, who had also been Stanford's personal attorney on the island, changed the island nation's money laundering laws to the benefit of Stanford and his CIA/MOSSAD overseers, without a peep from any of the regulatory agencies in Washington. Cort, who is now the National Security Minister of Antigua and has used his position to make things uncomfortable for Stanford fraud investigators traveling to the island, also served on the board of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, which took over Stanford's Bank of Antigua after Stanford empire collapsed in 2009. Stanford had become a political kingpin in Antigua, exercising influence over the previous Lester Bird government and its successor, the present Baldwin Spencer government -- without any interference from Ourisman in Barbados or the State Department of stooges of CIA....

Even today, Antigua's ambassador to the United States, Debra-Mae Lovell, the wife of Antigua's corruption-tainted Finance Minister Harold Lovell, spends most of her time in Washington acting as a public relations flack for Antigua and ridiculing the former Stanford investors who were defrauded by the Ponzi scheme -- a scheme facilitated by a corrupt Antiguan government. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, more concerned about the continuation of U.S. military basing rights on Antigua, has warmly embraced Ambassador Lovell and members of her government and has lavished hundreds of millions of dollars of aid on Antigua.

The bodies have piled up among those who were most familiar with Stanford's operations. On February 25, 2009, we reported, "No one will ever know just how Charlesworth Shelley Hewlett, who ran CAS Hewlett & Company out of a small office sandwiched between fish and chips shops on South Bury Road in Enfield in north London, came to be the accountant for Allen Stanford's $50 billion financial empire that included Stanford International Bank (SIB). That is because Mr. Hewlett, known as a quiet gray-haired man to those who had offices in his north London office block, died 'peacefully'...with help from CIA goons, a few weeks before the Stanford scandal hit the front pages. Hewlett was 73 but no one knows the reason for Hewlett's death." Hewlett also maintained an office on St. John's Street, in St. John's, the capital of Antigua.

Stogniew, who headed a one-man company in Florida, Stogniew and Associates, provided risk analysis services for Stanford. Stogniew produced a flimsy three-page risk analysis report for Stanford in 2003. It mostly consisted of disclaimers. Gerry Stogniew, who founded his company in 1980 and resided in Seminole, Florida, died in July 2008.... The firm was taken over by Stogniew's daughter and CIA.... Oddly, the professional staff for Stogniew and Associates are only listed by their initials. Federal Election Commission records indicate Stogniew donated to the campaigns of George H. W. Bush in 1987 and Florida Republicans Bill McCollum in 1999 and Katherine Harris in 2005.

Allen Stanford and Mary Ourisman shared more than an interest in protecting Stanford International Bank from nosy regulators: they were both born in the small Texas town of Mexia, Ourisman in 1946 and Stanford in 1950. The town's other "famous" celebrity: the late Anna Nicole Smith, who died from a suspected lethal drug overdose in Hollywood, Florida in 2007.....

Lands Returned to Stanford

While taken on face value the following statement appears to be good news for Stanford victims, however it required international action to force the government to acquiesce and hand back these properties.

It should also be remembered that properties within the airport complex have been retained by the government and that similar promises were made to Half Moon Bay holdings which still have not been honoured.
Attorney General Justin Simon announced in Parliament yesterday that all “Stanford” lands with the exception of those inside the airport compound have been released from government hands.

Simon said the release comes in conjunction with a co-operation agreement signed between US receivers, Ralph Janvey and the joint liquidators.

“Earlier this week, I received communication from the joint liquidators of the Stanford Bank Limited … (That) a co-operation agreement between themselves and the US receiver has been filed.

“This co-operation agreement … seeks to bring an end to the various legal challenges that have been taking place between the joint liquidators and the US receivers,” Simon said.

The AG said a consent form was signed releasing the lands in response to legal challenges from parties seeking to claim funds they invested in Stanford International Bank Limited (SIBL). He listed the lands that have been released effective May 20 this year.

“The government has released from its acquisition process the three parcels of land, two of them vacant and the Bank of Antigua headquarters at the airport … and also the Pelican Island property … Government has also released from its acquisition process the three parcels of land in St John’s, the two vacant on High Street and the third housing the bank branch of the Bank of Antigua,” Simon added.

The attorney general explained that the plan, as it regards Bank of Antigua, is for an amalgamation of various indigenous banks within the OECS to take charge of the bank.

“Certain of the assets and liabilities of the Bank of Antigua will be sold to a new corporate entity, ECA the Eastern Caribbean Amalgamated Bank, which is made up of the various indigenous banks within the OECS who will then be taking over the Bank of Antigua,” Simon said.

The refusal of the government to release the lands within the airport compound means that the compulsory acquisition process will continue and Simon assured that compensation will be settled for those eight parcels of land.

“The issue for the compensation for these parcels in accordance with the principles laid down in the Land Acquisition Act has to be settled and the parties are to exercise best endeavours to complete agreement within six months of the order,” he said.

In February last year, the government acquired 254 acres of land previously owned by Allen Stanford, after he was accused of US $8 billion fraud.

Then Minister of Finance and the Economy Dr Errol Cort said that they were forced to take action because the Texan appointed receiver for Stanford International Bank, Stanford Group Company, Stanford Capital Management, as well as the investor and other individuals had sought to impose himself in as the receiver-manager of SIB.

Antiguans Were Allowed To Invest in SIB

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Financial Services Regulatory Commission (FSRC) John Benjamin has refused to discuss the contents of a recent report on its practices.

Senator Joanne Massiah said last week that an investigation had resulted in a report being passed to Cabinet.

Benjamin, when asked whether he had already seen the report, said "I have heard of it."

He added, “I will not discuss the report,” then admitted that he was aware of the Freedom of Information act.

No member of Cabinet has revealed the contents either, although Caribarena.com understands that there are details of some serious allegations.

Caribarena.com has also been reliably informed that a number of Antiguans and Barbudans were allowed to invest in the Stanford International Bank (SIB), although by law, nationals are not allowed to invest in offshore banks in their personal capacities.

An Antiguan national who wishes to invest in an offshore bank can do so by registering an International Business Corporation (IBC) outside the local jurisdiction.

This was designed so that offshore banks cannot compete with domestic banks.

The FSRC is responsible for regulating offshore banks like SIB.

Its former head, Leroy King, is accused of conspiring with R Allen Stanford, the sole owner of SIB, to defraud investors.

King is awaiting an extradition hearing after he was indicted with Stanford in what has been described as a massive Ponzi scheme.