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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Asset-Recovery Suits Avert Stanford’s Protest

DALLAS (CN) - Convicted Ponzi schemer R. Allen Stanford cannot torpedo asset-recovery lawsuits by the court-appointed receiver of his companies, a federal judge ruled Monday.

U.S. District Judge David Godbey rejected Stanford's motion for injunctive relief and request for a special prosecutor against receiver Ralph Janvey, with Krage Janvey in Dallas.

Janvey has aggressively tried to recover funds originating from Stanford's $7 billion Ponzi scheme, filing more than 70 lawsuits against recipients since his appointment, according to the Courthouse News database.

His targets have included the Miami Heat basketball team, the Tiger Woods Foundation, Texas A&M University, the University of Miami, the PGA Tour and the ATP Tour.

Godbey wrote that the "balance of hardships weigh heavily against" Stanford's request for a temporary restraining order, that it "would greatly disserve the public interest."

"The court determines that Stanford has not demonstrated a substantial likelihood of prevailing on his motion to advise the court of the criminal conduct on the part of a court-appointed officer and to request a referral to the office of the United States Attorney General for the appointment of a special prosecutor," the three-page order states. "Furthermore, to the extent Stanford requests these measure to be put in place until there is a 'final disposition' in both Stanford's civil and criminal case, the court determines such requested measures by Stanford would greatly hard and delay the ongoing Stanford receivership and would greatly hard the victims of Stanford's Ponzi scheme, and Stanford has failed to adequately show how Janvey, a count-appointed receiver, has 'greatly diminished (or rather destroyed) the value of the global Stanford estate.'" (Parentheses in original.)

Godbey ordered Stanford last year to pay $6.76 billion in a civil suit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The agency sued him in 2009, accusing him of running the Ponzi scheme through the sale of certificates of deposit.

In a separate criminal case three years later, a Houston federal jury convicted Stanford on 13 of 14 counts of conspiracy, wire fraud and mail fraud. He was sentenced to 110 years in federal prison.

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