A federal choose ordered an finish to the Securities and Change Fee’s 16-year-old lawsuit over Allen Stanford’s $7.2 billion Ponzi scheme, directing the financier and two former colleagues to pay sums that can go largely uncollected.
In a choice on Wednesday, Chief Decide David Godbey of the Dallas federal courtroom imposed a $5.9 billion civil superb on Stanford, who’s serving a 110-year jail sentence after being convicted in 2012 of defrauding about 18,000 buyers.
Godbey ordered Stanford Monetary Group’s former chief monetary officer James Davis to pay $17.66 million, together with a $5 million superb, and former chief accounting officer Gilberto Lopez to pay $3.42 million over their roles within the fraud.
Authorities mentioned Stanford bought fraudulent high-yielding certificates of deposit via his Antigua-based Stanford Worldwide Financial institution throughout a two-decade fraud, and used investor cash to make dangerous investments and fund a lavish way of life.
The choose additionally deemed billions of {dollars} owed by numerous Stanford entities happy by court-appointed receiver Ralph Janvey’s restoration of greater than $2.5 billion for fraud victims, together with $1.2 billion from Toronto-Dominion Financial institution.
Godbey mentioned there was “no simply cause for delay” in ordering the funds and shutting the case.
As soon as thought-about a billionaire, Stanford was declared indigent in 2010. Now 74, he’s ineligible for launch from jail till 2103.
Attorneys for Davis and Lopez didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark. An SEC spokesperson declined to remark.
Davis was the prime authorities witness at Stanford’s trial, testified in opposition to his former faculty roommate, and was sentenced in 2013 to 5 years in jail. Lopez was convicted individually, and sentenced in 2013 to twenty years in jail.
The SEC sued Stanford in Feb. 2009, two months after the late swindler Bernard Madoff was criminally charged with working a a lot bigger Ponzi scheme.