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His girlfriend’s house was surrounded by Federal agents in black SUV’s this afternoon, they told him to walk out and introduce himself. So he did, and he asked them, ‘If you’ve got a warrant, take me into custody. If you don’t, I’m going to Houston.’ And they did, so they arrested him.

Chairman of the troubled Stanford Financial Group, R. Allen Stanford surrendered to FBI agents in Virginia Thursday afternoon, his attorney said. Law enforcement officials said Stanford is in custody after surrendering in Stafford, Va. Authorities plan to unseal an indictment charging Stanford on Friday, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case.

Stanford Financial Group has been under investigation by a grand jury in Houston. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil charges earlier this year accusing Stanford and his top executives of conducting an $8 billion fraud by advising clients to buy certificates of deposit from the Antigua-based Stanford International Bank.

The SEC’s lawsuit charged that the bank advertised its CDs in a brochure touting a conservative investment philosophy. But instead the bank’s portfolio was “misappropriated by Defendant Allen Stanford and used by him to acquire private equity investments and real estate,” the suit says.
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ob-cz950_madbro_d_20090123220849Until now, the official line is that the two Madoff sons, Mark and Andrew, only worked on the market-making side of the business.

Dad’s business — Bernie Madoff Investment Securities — was not their domain, they say, and thus they have nothing to do with the fraud. For a long time, people have suspected this wasn’t true, but a story in offers the best evidence yet. Far from just being in the back office on the brokerage side of the business, the sons were salesman for the Madoff fund:

Dalton Givens saw the warning signs.

Madoff’s sons wined and dined Givens, then a senior vice president of Wachovia Securities, at a steakhouse in Charlotte, N.C., to try to persuade Wachovia to invest in Madoff’s hedge fund.

Givens, now retired from the firm and living in Boonville, said he took a few sniffs and didn’t like the aroma.

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This is new. There have never been reports of the sons going out to sell the fund, let alone wining and dining bankers. Obviously, if they thought the fund was legitimate, then there’s nothing wrong with selling it. But obviously their involvement is more than they’ve let on, which means everything else they’ve said should be suspect.

madoff_webA judge decided today that the accused mastermind of what is allegedly the largest Ponzi scheme in history will remain free on a $10 million bond but will continue to be under house arrest at his posh Manhattan penthouse.

U.S. prosecutors had asked that Madoff be jailed while awaiting trial on a federal fraud charge. U.S. Magistrate Judge Ronald Ellis ruled that Madoff was not a flight risk and did not pose a threat to society.

Prosecutors had requested that his bail be revoked because Madoff had mailed more than $1 million in jewelry and heirlooms to people over the holidays and apparently had written, but not mailed, millions of dollars of checks to people.

The decision is sure to further outrage investors who have been clamoring for Madoff to be sent to jail for allegedly carrying out the largest financial fraud in history. Prosecutors said the gifts were grounds to have his bail revoked because what’s left of Madoff’s assets will have to be returned to burned investors.

According to the report, Madoff’s new bail conditions include an inventory of his personal property and searches of his mail. The judge ruled that federal prosecutors failed to prove their contention that Madoff posed risks sufficient to merit his incarceration pending trial.

The anxiously awaited decision does put further restrictions on Madoff, including forcing him to come up with a list of items at his apartment and allowing a security firm to check on the items. The security company will also be allowed to search all outgoing mail from Madoff to ensure that no property has been transferred.
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hand-cuffsAn employee of a south Phoenix social-services agency was arrested Monday on charges of embezzling nearly $200,000 in government checks intended to fund parenting programs.

Rosalie Magana was indicted on three counts of theft and one count of fraud after authorities say she stole the checks from Friendly House in December 2006 and January 2007.

Two other women were arrested and sentenced in 2007 for depositing the checks in a credit union, but investigators were unable to link the thefts to Magana until last week.

Friendly House is a 90-year-old social-services agency in south Phoenix. It offers a range of programs, including job training, adult education, family counseling, immigration-law assistance, elder care, a charter school and a food bank.

Magana, 60, has worked in the finance department for six years, according to agency CEO Luis Ibarra. She also picked up the mail.

Three checks totaling $198,000 from the Arizona Department of Economic Security went missing in early 2007.

Magana was indicted last week. Postal inspectors arrested her at Friendly House on Monday. Bond was set at $5,000.
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It was $1,900 here and $10,000 there.

On Friday, it all added up to a sentence of 55 years in state prison for 42-year-old Johnnie Miles, whose criminal record — of bad checks and financial fraud — dates to when she was 14 years old, according to court officials.

A month ago, a six-member Indian River County jury found the 29th Avenue resident innocent of the latest charges against her: defrauding a store out of $7,500 during a three-month period in 2007.

But under state rules, Circuit Court Judge Dan Vaughn was allowed to take another look at the facts in the latest case. That’s because she was on probation for a 2003 conviction for grand theft and fraud in Indian River County.

Because of her record, Vaughn gave her the maximum for probation violation: 11 five-year state jail terms, all to be servedconsecutively, adding up to 55 years. Each five-year term is for the 11 offenses for which she served four years in state prison.

Her record goes back even further, including an additional 20 felony fraud and theft convictions, nine petty theft convictions and seven misdemeanor cases, according to county court records.

“She is one of the most notorious thieves” in the county, said Assistant State Attorney Adam Chrzan, who handled her latest case.
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