Securities Law Blog

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged two accountants who produced bogus financial statements and an Antiguan regulator who took allegedly bribes to look the other way as Robert Allen Stanford conducted an alleged $8 billion Ponzi scheme.

The SEC previously charged Stanford and his companies - Antiguan-based Stanford International Bank (SIB), Houston-based broker-dealer and investment adviser Stanford Group Company (SGC), and investment adviser Stanford Capital Management - as well as SIB chief financial officer James Davis and Stanford Financial Group chief investment officer Laura Pendergest-Holt with securities fraud in an enforcement action filed in federal court in Dallas on February 17, 2009.

The SEC amended its complaint today to additionally charge Mark Kuhrt and Gilberto Lopez, accountants for Stanford-affiliated companies who allegedly fabricated financial statements to give investors the false illusion that their investments were solid, safe and secure. The SEC also charged Leroy King, the administrator and chief executive officer of Antigua's Financial Services Regulatory Commission (FSRC), for accepting thousands of dollars per month in bribes to ignore the Stanford Ponzi scheme and supply Stanford himself with confidential information about the SEC's investigation. King allegedly obstructed the SEC's case since 2005, when its investigation into Stanford began.