Former T20 cricket enigma and ex-multi billionaire, Allen Stanford, has been sentenced to 110 years in jail for defrauding investors of $7 billion. Stanford was also ordered to pay back $5,9 billion, which he doesn’t have, because he lost everything.

The Guardian has more on Stanford’s bizarre background:

The 6ft 4in Texan was arrested three years ago after the police tracked him down to a modest townhouse in Fredericksburg, Virginia, owned by one of his girlfriends.

After it became clear his business empire was on the point of collapse, Stanford had been attempting to flee to Antigua. The Caribbean island was his second home. He was known as Sir Allen there and was one of the largest landowners with business interests including the local cricket ground, newspapers and restaurants. He had spent much of his time there on his 112ft motor yacht, Sea Eagle Bikini.

Abandoned by his mother as a child, Stanford had grown up poor in the tiny town of Mexia, Texas. After an early career in gyms failed to pan out he moved into finance, eventually building Stanford International Bank into a global investment firm with offices from Caracas to Zurich.

The money bought him power and influence. He was said to be close to the Bush family. In Washington, he and his executives gave over $1.8m to Democrat and Republican politicians. President Barack Obama received $4,600 for his 2008 election campaign.

It also allowed him to buy his way into the heart of the cricket establishment. Stanford developed a love of the game in Antigua. In 2008 the august England and Wales Cricket Board signed a five-year deal with him for a series of matches between England and an all-star West Indies team.

The billionaire announced the deal in typically flamboyant style, arriving at Lord’s cricket ground in a black helicopter and posing for photographs with a perspex case containing $20m in cash.

But according to the prosecution all this wealth belonged to someone else. Stanford’s lavish lifestyle was financed by investors who bought certificates of deposit, or CDs, from his bank. But instead of investing the cash, he spent it.

After Stanford, 62, was convicted of 13 of the 14 counts against him back in March, prosecutors had called that the maximum sentence of 230 years be imposed.

Stanford’s lawyers didn’t agree, and seeing as he had been in jail since his arrest in June 2009, his lawyers asked for a maximum of 44 months, a sentence he could complete within about eight months because of the time he has already served.

Peculiarly, the trial in Houston had also been delayed after Stanford’s defence team claimed their client had lost his memory following a vicious prison beating following a dispute over a telephone call.

Reports indicate that Stanford didn’t seem to care much, telling the court:

If I live the rest of my life in prison, I will always be at peace with the way I conducted myself in business.

He even accused the prosecution of “Gestapo” tactics, and claimed they’d ruined a legitimate business. “I’m not a thief, I never defrauded anyone.”

In court, Angela Shaw, a victim, told the judge:

Allen Stanford has stolen more than billions of dollars. He took our lives as we knew them.

She claimed 28 000 people had lost money in the scam.

Prosecutors said Stanford was a “ruthless predator” and had treated his victims like “roadkill”. He’d simply sought to satisfy his own “greed and vanity”.

Check out the gallery below sent in by a 2oceansViber. The large looking villa behind the scoreboard was Stanford’s ponzi scheme he referred to as his bank. Stanford and his wealthy friends would often kill it around the swimming pool at the Antigua Athletic Club he built next to the cricket ground, while they watched cricket from their elevated position.

The only question that remains is how he managed to get away with it for so long.

[Source: TheGuardian]