Stanford foreign accounts should be forfeited: jury

(Reuters) – Convicted swindler Allen Stanford should forfeit some $330 million stashed in foreign bank accounts, a jury found yesterday.

The verdict clears the way for the U.S. government to try to seize the funds and return them to investors.

Stanford was convicted on Tuesday in federal court in Houston of running a $7 billion Ponzi scheme.

During a six-week trial, prosecutors said Stanford stole the deposits of investors in Stanford International Bank in Antigua to fund a lavish lifestyle of girlfriends, mansions, private jets and yachts.

The same court then considered whether funds held in 29 accounts in Canada, Switzerland, Britain and other countries should be forfeited. The accounts are mainly in the name of Stanford International Bank, which Stanford owned, and in the name of Stanford himself.

One of the accounts, called “Baby Mama,” was in the name of Rebecca Reeves-Stanford, the mother of two of Stanford’s children.

During the forfeiture proceedings, prosecutors said they traced the money in the accounts back to deposits in Stanford International Bank.

But Stanford’s defense lawyers said the former financier’s business was viable until the government shut it down and seized its U.S. assets in February of 2009.

SOMBER

Stanford looked somber as the jury delivered its forfeiture verdict. He shook his head repeatedly as U.S. District Judge David Hittner thanked the attorneys for presenting what he called an academically rigorous case over the past six weeks.

Robert Scardino, one of Stanford’s lawyers, said afterward that he would consider appealing a ruling by Hittner in December that Stanford was competent to be tried. “Our client spent almost nine months in a mental facility in North Carolina before trial,” he said. “We had 30 days with a competent client.”