HOUSTON – Fourteen years ago, on Feb. 16, 2009, lawyers for the SEC stood on the front lawn of a federal judge seeking an emergency order to freeze all assets of R. Allen Stanford and his investment firm, accusing the Houston financier of perpetrating a massive $8 billion fraud. Next Monday, exactly 14 years and 10 days later, a Houston jury will be chosen to decide whether three banks aided and abetted Stanford in the fraud.
The court-appointed receiver is expected to ask the jury to order Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD Bank), HSBC Bank and Independent Bank (formerly Bank of Houston) to pay $4 billion to $10 billion to the thousands of victims of Stanford’s Ponzi scheme. The Texas Lawbook examines the 14-year journey this case took to get to trial.
