Dayam! They just sentenced Allen Sanford to 110 years – about 1/2 the time they’d sentence a black teenager in Texas for possessing a gram of crack!
Who’d this white, white-collar criminal piss off? He steal some Bush money…Or what?
Ex-Tycoon R. Allen Stanford Sentenced To 110 Years
Former jet-setting Texas tycoon R. Allen Stanford, whose financial empire once spanned the Americas, was sentenced Thursday to 110 years in prison for bilking investors out of more than $7 billion over 20 years in one of the largest Ponzi schemes in U.S. history.
U.S. District Judge David Hittner handed down the sentence during a court hearing in which two people spoke on behalf of Stanford’s investors about how his fraud had affected their lives.
Prosecutors had asked that Stanford be sentenced to 230 years in prison, the maximum sentence possible after a jury convicted the one-time billionaire in March on 13 of 14 fraud-related counts. Stanford’s convictions on conspiracy, wire and mail fraud charges followed a seven-week trial.
Stanford’s attorneys had asked for a maximum of 44 months, a sentence he could have completed within about eight months because he has been jailed since his arrest in June 2009…
Sanford’s 112′ Yacht
Sanford’s “other” Yacht
Stanford was once considered one of the richest men in the U.S., with an estimated net worth of more than $2 billion. His financial empire stretched from the U.S. to Latin America and the Caribbean. But after his arrest, all of his assets were seized and he had to rely on court-appointed attorneys to defend him.
Calling Stanford arrogant and remorseless, prosecutors said he used the money from investors who bought certificates of deposit, or CDs, from his bank on the Caribbean island nation of Antigua to fund a string of failed businesses, bribe regulators and pay for a lavish lifestyle that included yachts, a fleet of private jets and sponsorship of cricket tournaments.
One of 6 jets Owned by Sanford
Defense attorneys portrayed Stanford, 62, as a visionary entrepreneur who made money for investors and conducted legitimate business deals. They accused the prosecution’s star witness James M. Davis, the former chief financial officer for Stanford’s various companies of being behind the fraud and tried to discredit him by calling him a liar and tax cheat.
And to top it all off – one of two Gulfstreams
The jury that convicted Stanford also cleared the way for U.S. authorities to go after about $330 million in stolen investor funds sitting in the financier’s frozen foreign bank accounts in Canada, England and Switzerland.
Filed under: American Greed Tagged: | Allen Sanford, conviction, criminal, crook, Ponzi, sentencing, white collar crime
