Jury: U.S. can seize $330M in Stanford accounts

Two days after finding former Texas tycoon R. Allen Stanford guilty of operating a massive Ponzi scheme, a Houston jury today says there is sufficient evidence that $330 million in frozen foreign bank accounts was indeed stolen from investors, clearing the way for U.S. authorities to go after the funds. The decision in the criminal forfeiture case followed Stanford’s conviction Tuesday on 13 of 14 fraud-related counts for bilking investors out of more than $7 billion through the sale of certificates of deposit, or CDs, from his bank on the Caribbean island nation of Antigua. Today’s decision doesn’t guarantee that U.S. authorities will get the money, as liquidators appointed by an Antiguan court are also vying for control of many of the same accounts. Authorities say it could take years to actually get the money because each request must be evaluated by the countries where the frozen accounts are located, including Switzerland, Britain and Canada. Local officials have estimated that as much as $1 billion of the $7 billion generated in the international Ponzi scheme came from investors in the Baton Rouge area. Also today, U.S. District Judge David Hittner set a June 14 sentencing date for Stanford on the criminal convictions. Stanford has been locked up since 2009; and while the most serious charges against him carry prison terms of up to 20 years, Hittner could send the 61-year-old Stanford to prison for life by ordering that his sentences run consecutively. Check out the full story from The Associated Press here.