A contestant in the Longest Prison Term Sweepstakes is Robert Allen Stanford. If you recall, Stanford was a bon vivant, self-made billionaire - "self-made," that is, through making his money by having his foreign bank sell investors sham certificates of deposit. His $7 billion ponzi scheme put him in jail for 110 years. He's a mere piker compared with Bernard Madoff, who bilked his clients for $20 billion in principal funds and was sentenced to 150 years in the clink. Stanford's scheme needed somebody to "aid and abet" him in his illicit endeavors. In Madoff's case, the insiders allegedly consisted of a close circle of associates. But Stanford's contemptible circumstance has produced a new piñata in alleging civil conspiracy and aiding and abetting fraud; I refer, of course, to the lawyers!
Jonathan |