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FILE - In this March 6, 2012 file photo, R. Allen Stanford leaves the Bob Casey Federal Courthouse in Houston. Stanford, once considered one of the wealthiest people in the U.S., with a financial empire that spanned the Americas, was convicted on charges he bilked investors out of more than $7 billion. The 62-year-old was sentenced by a Houston federal judge on Thursday, June 14, 2012. (AP Photo/Houston Chronicle, Nick de la Torre, File)
Stanford, 63, wearing a green jail jumpsuit, stood today before U.S. District Judge David Hittner to hear his sentence of 110 years in prison.
One Stanford victim, Jaime Excalona, spoke to the court, calling Stanford "a dirty, rotten scoundrel."
Prior to hearing his fate, the tall former playboy businessman spoke in the courtroom for the first time since his trial began in late January.
"I'm not asking for sympathy," he said, "just want a fair shot."
He also insisted, "I am not a thief."
Stanford also expressed sympathy for "depositors, employees, families and my own family," some seated in the audience.
Fighting back tears, he told the court, "I never defrauded anyone."
One Internet post on Twitter as the hearing progressed said about Stanford's fate: "Let him rot."
A federal jury convicted him March 6 on 13 of 14 counts from wire fraud and money laundering to conspiracy to obstruct a U.S. investigation. A few days ago, prosecutors asked Hittner to sentence him to 230 years in prison.
On entering the Houston courtroom, one of Stanford's attorneys termed the request "outrageous."
Although Stanford's attorneys are likely to appeal his March conviction in the town where he built his financial empire, Stanford will continue in federal jail custody until the U.S. Bureau of Prisons decides where he'll serve the time.
Because he was declared indigent, Stanford's appeal will be paid by the public.
Today, the downtown courthouse courtroom brimmed with media and black-garbed former investors of certificates of deposit in the defunct Stanford International Bank Ltd. of Antigua, which crashed in 2009 under the weight of a federal investigation.
Many investors said afterward that they thought their investments were insured. They were not.
Now, they say they hope a federal receiver or a quasi-public industry fund, or both, can move ahead with their reimbursement, although few observers expect them to get all their money back.
Scores of Mississippians lost money in the Stanford collapse after doing business through Stanford Financial Group offices in Tupelo, Jackson and Memphis.
Four Stanford co-defendants – including Baldwyn native Laura Pendergest-Holt, the former chief investment officer – are scheduled for trial on similar charges in September.
Stanford Victims Coalition leader Angela Shaw also spoke to the court before Stanford's sentence was pronounced.
She said of Stanford, "He took our lives as we knew them."
(Read Stanford's reply to the government's recent recommendation for 230 years prison, document attached.)
Come back to DJournal.com for more details or read Friday's Daily Journal newspaper.