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Allen Stanford's New Lawyers: Admiralty And Maritime Law Experts
Remember our old friend Allen Stanford? Matthew Goldstein, who had been covering the Stanford story closely at BusinessWeek, and has now moved to Reuters, has an interesting catch about the cricket-loving billionaire's curious legal strategy.
Goldstein reports that Stanford last week replaced his civil defense team with a group of lawyers from the Gulf Law Group, a little-known Washington, DC-based firm.
Who are these guys? Writes Goldstein:
The Gulf firm bills itself as a "full-service firm," but it mainly appears to be a law firm specializing in admiralty and maritime law. On the firm's homepage there are photographs of a lighthouse, a cargo ship and offshore drilling platform.Securities law does not appear to be one of the firm's specialities.
Of course, it's a securities law expert that Stanford needs. He's been charged by the SEC with orchestrating a $8 billion Ponz scheme.
Could the makeup of his new team suggest he plans to base his defense around jurisdictional issues, somehow arguing that the fact that his bank was headquartered in Antigua puts him beyond the reach of US authorities?
It's also worth noting that Stanford still appears to have the heavy-hitting criminal defense lawyer Dick DeGuerin on call, if and when Sir Allen is criminally charged.
Josh
Zachary
Excuse me, if you will... That's Sir Allen. Of all the detritus in the financial world that's washed up in the past few years, this classic con man is becoming my favorite. Trying to hide fraud by purchasing a tropical island for "development" - that's class, baby.
And his story really would be a laugh riot if so many investors weren't drained of everything on earth they had.
June 9, 2009 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Matthew Goldstein has been on the trail of Allen Stanford for some time. I have seen his work at Newsweek. The Gulf Law Group that is in the article is odd and deserves more investigation. The website is not your typical law firm site. Goldstein also mentions a Ruth Schuster as Partner in the firm that has offices in Houston, New orleans and DC. Yet, when I look at her profile, she is barely out of law school from Tulane and is only licensed to practice law in Texas. Hardly a Partner in a large law firm as the website might suggest.
When you goggle the three addresses that are listed on their website, the Guld Law Group is not listed in any of the three buildings in the three cities. However, the Qorvis Communications that he lists in the article as handling the public relations for Allen Stanford is in the same building that Gulf Law Group alleges on its website.
One final note and I'll stop until I receive some returm calls from contacts that I spoke with today. The website has no attorneys listed nor does it give a roster of its partners. Odd for a law firm. The site is also developed by a group that handles other "faceless clients". Spook village here I come.
June 9, 2009 7:18 PM | Reply | Permalink