Texas financier Allen Stanford, who is in federal prison awaiting trial on charges that his financial empire was a $7.1 billion Ponzi scheme, received a little more bad news this week as Antigua stripped him of his title.
Stanford was known around the Caribbean as "Sir Allen Stanford" after receiving the knighthood of the nation of Antigua and Barbuda. Monday the government panel that approves the honorary awards voted to revoke it, the Associated Press reported.
Jacqui Quinn-Leandro, chairwoman of the National Honors Committee, told the AP the panel last month voted unanimously to revoke Stanford’s title for embarrassing the nation by running an alleged Ponzi scheme out of his Antigua-based offshore bank, although the decision was not announced until Monday.
Stanford, whose financial network spread across the Caribbean and included property and offices on St. Croix, is in jail in Texas awaiting charges for allegedly defrauding some 28,000 investors out of $7 billion by selling them what U.S. authorities say were bogus certificates of deposits.
”It’s not that we’re saying he’s guilty, but it’s the honor that has been brought into disrepute,” Quinn-Leandro, told the AP.
Stanford received his knighthood in 2006 from Antigua’s governor-general – the representative of Queen Elizabeth II in the country – and was widely known as ”Sir Allen,” although the title applied only in that island nation.
