FBI arrests Stanford Financial Group exec

[February 27, 2009]  HOUSTON (AP) -- FBI agents have arrested the chief investment officer of troubled Stanford Financial Group, accusing Laura Pendergest-Holt of obstructing a Securities and Exchange Commission fraud investigation.

The SEC has been investigating allegations of an $8 billion investment fraud involving Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford's financial group. Stanford was served legal papers by FBI agents last week and ordered to surrender his passport, but has not been charged with a crime.

Pendergest-Holt was arrested Thursday in Houston, where Stanford Financial Group is based. The FBI said she was taken to the federal detention center and would appear in federal court Friday morning for an arraignment.

"She is looking forward to working with the government to get all the facts out and put this behind her," her attorney Brent Baker said Thursday night.

The government alleges in a federal complaint that Pendergest-Holt obstructed the investigation with some of her answers to SEC investigators' questions, including failing to reveal to the SEC how much she knew about investments in Stanford International Bank Ltd.

The FBI said in an affidavit that Pendergest-Holt repeatedly misrepresented how much she knew about the bank's Tier III portfolio, which represented about 81 percent of the bank's portfolio, and did not let the SEC investigators know that she had learned of a $1.6 billion loan to a shareholder.

The complaint also alleges that Pendergest-Holt did not reveal that she was a member of the bank's investment committee.

"We appreciate the quick and decisive action of the Department of Justice and the FBI, and thank them for their fine work and cooperation in this matter," SEC Deputy Enforcement Director Scott Friestad said in an e-mail.

Stanford is accused in civil charges of lying about the safety of investments he sold as "certificates of deposit" and promised unrealistically high rates of return. Regulators also said he faked historical data about other investments which he then used to lure in more investors for the CD products.

Michael Zarich, the company's senior investment officer, has told authorities he didn't know where 90 percent of Stanford's portfolio was invested. Zarich has said he was trained by Pendergest-Holt to deflect questions about the investment strategy while pitching to wealthy clients in Antigua, where the bank was chartered.

When he tried to learn how the money was invested, Zarich has said Pendergest-Holt and Stanford's deputy James Davis turned him away. Zarich also has said Pendergest-Holt armed him with answers for potential investors worried about the size of Stanford's tiny, Antigua-based auditor.

[Associated Press]

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