Defense’s first witness says Stanford was Antigua’s champion

R. Allen Stanford’s defense against fraud charges kicked off with a story of how he reformed banking laws in Antigua, the headquarters of his offshore bank, The Houston Chronicle reports. After three weeks of testimony from former Stanford Financial customers, staffers and federal investigators, federal prosecutors rested their case Wednesday. Defense lawyers began calling witnesses without indicating whether Stanford himself will testify in his own defense. Stanford’s legal team has submitted a list of 27 witnesses. The first defense witness, lawyer and former U.S. Customs Agent Patrick O’Brien, served with Stanford during the late 1990s on a committee charged with reforming banking laws in the Caribbean nation of Antigua, where Stanford owned the largest bank. Stanford pushed the effort and wanted to make Antigua the “crown jewel” among Caribbean nations for providing financial services, O’Brien told jurors. The effort yielded new laws and a new regulatory body in Antigua, and Stanford was named to its board, even though he owned an institution it was charged with overseeing. Read the full story here.