Ex-tycoon R. Allen Stanford was sentenced to 110 years in prison Thursday. The 62-year-old Texan ran Ponzi schemes for over 20 years cheating investors over more than $7 billion. His business enterprise ranged from Texas to Latin America, the Caribbean's and even Antigua. According to an NPR report, Stanford ran one of the largest Ponzi scams in the U.S. history.
Prosecutors on behalf of some investors asked for the maximum sentence (230 years), Stanford's lawyer was asking for 44 months. The U.S. District Judge David Hittner handed down a sentence of 110 years instead.
Stanford was arrested in June 2009. He was convicted on 14 counts of fraud in March of this year. Today's conviction was regarding charges on conspiracy, wire and mail fraud.
In a 40 minute address to court today, Stanford stated: "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, "as reported by the Associated Press.
Stanford, once considered one of the richest in the country, had all his assets and wealth seized by the government upon his arrest in 2009.
Now that the jury has ruled in the prosecutors favor U.S. authorities will try to retrieve the $330 million in stolen investor funds stored away in foreign banks of Canada, Switzerland and England. The accounts are all frozen.
Stanford faces another lawsuit in the coming months with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissions that is also accusing him of fraud. Three other former executives from Stanford's enterprise are being tried in September for the same charges.
