R. Allen Stanford, the Texas financier convicted of fleecing 30,000 investors from 113 countries in a $7 billion Ponzi scheme, was sentenced on Thursday to 110 years in jail.
A defiant Mr. Stanford, in a rambling statement to the court before the sentencing, intermittently fought back tears and shuffled papers, and said, “I’m not up here to ask for sympathy or forgiveness. I’m up here to tell you from my heart I didn’t run a Ponzi scheme.”
He blamed the government for the collapse of his businesses and asserted that “we could have paid off every depositor and still have substantial assets remaining.”
In response, federal prosecutor, William J. Stellmach, called Mr. Stanford’s version of events “obscene.”
“This is a man utterly without remorse,” Mr. Stellmach said. “From beginning to end, he treated all of his victims as roadkill.”
“He went after the middle class, including people who didn’t have money to lose. People have lost their homes. They have come out of retirement.”
A federal jury in March convicted Mr. Stanford of 13 out of 14 counts of fraud in connection with a worldwide scheme over more than two decades in which he offered fraudulent high-interest certificates of deposit at the Stanford International Bank, which was based on the Caribbean island of Antigua.
Prosecutors argued that Mr. Stanford had consistently lied to investors, promoting safe investments for money that he channeled into a luxurious lifestyle, a Swiss bank account and various business deals that almost never succeeded.
Sept 2008 video
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