It looks like Allen Stanford just couldn’t quit his high-living ways — even when the chips, so to speak, were down.
The Financial Times has a great find in the court filings made by the SEC in Stanford’s case:
The Commission is investigating whether Stanford has violated the terms of the asset freeze after it was entered by writing a series of checks to the Bellagio Hotel & Casino in the aggregate amount of $258,480. All of these checks were dated February 19, 2009 (two days after entry of the asset freeze), signed by Stanford, and honored on or about February 24th or 25th.
Stanford is trying to convince a judge to unlock $10 million of his assets, claiming that the freeze has left him without enough money to pay his heavy-hitting defense team, led by power lawyer Dick DeGuerin. But the cricket-loving billionaire might have had more cash flow if he hadn’t dropped over a quarter million dollars at a luxury hotel and casino in Vegas.
Looks like Sir Allen just couldn’t resist one more lavish spending spree.