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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Former Texas tycoon nets 110-year sentence
Johnny Hanson / The Associated Press R. Allen Stanford enters a Houston courthouse Thursday. (CP)
HOUSTON -- 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 US$7 billion over 20 years in one of the largest Ponzi schemes in American 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 41 months.
During Thursday's sentencing hearing, Stanford gave a rambling statement to the court in which he denied he did anything wrong. Speaking for more than 40 minutes, Stanford said he was a scapegoat and blamed the federal government and a U.S.-appointed receiver who took over his companies for tearing down his business empire and preventing his investors from getting any of their money back.
"I'm not here to ask for sympathy or forgiveness or to throw myself at your mercy," Stanford told Hittner. "I did not run a Ponzi scheme. I didn't defraud anybody."
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 the bitter end, he was a con man and a coward," Prosecutor William Stellmach said during the hearing.
-- The Associated Press
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 15, 2012 B9
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