Jew World Order

They are expected to argue that he has suffered considerably in prison
already, at one point receiving a severe beating when his cellmates – 14
of them in a room designed for eight – attacked him, apparently irritated by
his habit of chatting on his mobile telephone.

Stanford later tried to claim that his injuries – which included fractures to
his cheekbones and eye socket – meant he was unfit to stand trial, but the
prosecution went ahead.

At his sentencing, it will be the investors he swindled rather than
enthusiastic cricket fans who will form his audience. As much as they relish
seeing Stanford behind bars, it is only the recovery of their money which
will bring them closure.

The man once named by Forbes Magazine as the 605th richest person in the world
now claims to be impoverished. The US Justice department recently dropped an
attempt to issue him with a restitution order forcing him to hand over any
earnings he made to his victims, saying his financial affairs were so
complicated it would be impossible.

So far, it is estimated that victims will receive only 5 cents for every
dollar they invested.

Lisa Teti, from Florida, who lost $1.3 million along with her husband. said: “It
will be nice to see Stanford behind bars for the rest of his life but to be
honest, restitution would be even nicer.

“I blame the authorities for failing to warn us – for whatever reason
they turned a blind eye to what he was up to, and if they hadn’t, 90 per
cent of his victims would not have lost money.

“My husband and I checked Stanford out thoroughly with all of the
authorities and nothing came up to show that there was a problem. We did not
learn anything was wrong until we heard it on the news – that was the worst
day of our lives, a terrible sinking feeling. So many people have been left
destitute – some don’t even know where their next loaf of bread is coming
from.”

So many victims applied to address the Federal Courthouse in Houston that a
special lottery was held to decide which of his more than 20,000 victims
will get to look Stanford in the eye and tell him exactly what the fraud he
used to fund an extravagant playboy lifestyle has cost them.

And what a lifestyle it was, for the man born to a lower middle-class family
in the small Texan town of Mexia in 1950.

As well as the $100 million fleet of private jets, the yacht off the coast of
his adopted home of Antigua and the $10 million faux castle in Florida,
Stanford also had expensive family commitments, paying hundreds of thousands
of dollars a year to fund the four children he had by four secret “outside
wives,” including Kent-born Louise Sage.

He also has a legitimate daughter, Randi, by wife Susan, who he married age
25. She began divorce proceedings in 2007, but extensive wrangling over her
financial settlement meant they had not been completed when he was arrested
and it is unclear whether it ever went through.

By then, Antigua had become known as Stanford-land – he had a private terminal
at the airport, had built a much-needed hospital, was so well-connected
politically he was said to attend cabinet meetings and, with a fortune
exceeding the island’s GDP, was one of its biggest employers.

Knighted by Antigua’s governor general in 2006, the popular joke that new “Sir
Allen” saw himself as a colonial gentleman seemed confirmed as fact
when he began to take an interest in cricket.

But if his ambition was to be seen as landed gentry, his method of wooing the
English Cricket Board was pure Texas.

Announcing he would underwrite the Twenty20 game, Stanford flew into Lords by
helicopter, wheeling a glass Perspex box filled with $20 million in prize
money on to the pristine outfield.

Many felt that the ECB had been blinded by the ostentatious display of wealth
to the whispers about his financial dealings which had led other cricketing
authorities, in South Africa and Australia, to shun him.

Indeed, by 2008, when Stanford performed his Lords stunt, the warning signs
should have been clear.

Stanford had originally located his businesses in Montserrat, only moving to
Antigua in 1990 after authorities on the British colony began to ask
questions, leading him to voluntarily resign his banking licence.

Free and easy Antigua was a safer bet; when reports began to circulate about
possible financial misconduct, he pulled off the extraordinary feat of
having himself named as the island’s regulator. Stanford and his company had
by now come to the attention of both the US and British financial
authorities, who wrote several reports warning of irregularity and protested
about Antigua’s failure to follow up on them.

Added to this, a steady flow of Stanford employees began bringing law suits
against his company, alleging that they had been fired for refusing to carry
out acts they considered illegal or improper.

Unaware of this, investors continued to pour money into the Stanford Group
Company and Stanford Investment Bank, which promised them high yields on
investments in safe, heavily-audited financial instruments.

Instead, it would later emerge, the “vast majority” of the portfolio
was personally handled by Stanford and his best friend of 40 years James
Davis (who would later testify against him) who invested it in far riskier
private equity and real estate, the proceeds of which the financier used to
fund his extravagant lifestyle.

It took the unraveling of another Ponzi scheme, run by Bernie Madoff, for
federal investigators to focus on Stanford.

He was finally arrested at the Virginia home of his latest live-in girlfriend,
Andrea Stoelker, a 33-year-old former cocktail waitress, in June 2009.

Madoff would go on to be found guilty of running the largest fraud in history
and sentenced to 150 years in jail – ironically, 80 years less than
Sanford’s prosecutors are seeking.

However, any pleas by Stanford’s defence lawyers that his sentence is unduly
harsh is likely to get little sympathy from his victims.

“The only appropriate sentence is life,” said Mrs Teti. “I
would not want him to get out and be in a position to hurt anyone else. That
is the nature of the man. If he is not in prison he will keep doing this.”