R Allen Stanford ordered his communications chief to send investors reassuring letters and to rebut news articles that sparked a run on his bank two days before it was seized by regulators, a former aide said.
“He was screaming and saying people were taking their money out of the bank, and the bank was in trouble because of that,” Lula Rodriguez, Stanford’s former communications chief, told jurors in the financier’s US billion fraud trial in federal court in Houston.
“It was like a perfect storm was coming together.”
Rodriguez, 63, testified that a day later she couldn’t find any senior company officers willing to sign the requested communications, which stated that Stanford International Bank Ltd “remained a strong institution.”
After Stanford’s finance chief, compliance officer and general counsel all refused to sign the drafts, she tracked Stanford down at his suite at the InterContinetal hotel in Miami, she said.
“He told me people were trying to destroy him, but that things were going to be OK,” Rodriguez, who worked in Miami, recalled.
“We just needed to get over the hump.”
Rodriguez, who has said she had no knowledge of the alleged fraud scheme, testified that the company’s finance chief, James M Davis, who has since pleaded guilty to helping Stanford defraud investors, was at the hotel in a meeting with Stanford.
‘Death Warmed Over’
Also present were the company’s general counsel and Stanford’s fiancé, Andrea Stoelker, with the couple’s dog. Davis “looked like death warmed over” and spoke “not a word” during the meeting, Rodriguez told jurors. The dog, Ras, named for the financier’s initials, “was the happiest thing in the room,” she said.
Prosecutors accuse Stanford, 61, of secretly borrowing $2 billion from his Antigua-based Stanford International Bank to fund a lavish lifestyle and invest in scores of speculative ventures ranging from Caribbean airlines and real estate developments to cricket tournaments.
Holders of certificates of deposit in Stanford’s bank were told their money was in safe, liquid investments.
Stanford, who has been in custody as a flight risk since his June 2009 indictment, denies all wrongdoing.
If convicted of the most serious charges against him, he could spend as long as 20 years in prison.
(Source http://www.antiguaobserver.com/?p=71167)
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