BR-area residents sue six Stanford advisers

April 25, 2009 A half dozen Baton Rouge-area residents, including developer Mike Wampold III, filed suit Friday against Stanford Group Co. financial adviser Jason Green, of Baton Rouge, and five other Stanford brokers. The lawsuit claims each of the plaintiffs incurred substantial damages "ranging from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of millions of dollars." "Some of the plaintiffs have lost substantial portions of monies they had saved for retirement and were using these monies or intended to use these monies as their primary means of support in retirement," the suit alleges. The suit is the second in as many months filed by local residents against Stanford investment advisers in state district court in Baton Rouge. A similar suit was filed March 17 by 10 area residents against seven Stanford advisers, including Green. Green recently had that suit transferred to federal court. The latest suit has been assigned to state District Judge Janice Clark. Both suits claim investors lost money in an alleged Ponzi scheme of Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford. The Securities and Exchange Commission contends Stanford defrauded investors of $9 billion. In recent weeks, attorneys for Stanford have denied he operated such a scheme. Green and other Stanford advisers helped steer investors' money to certificates of deposit at the Stanford International Bank on the Caribbean island of Antigua. Green said in his federal court filing that he and the other advisers would not have had clients purchase CDs at the Stanford bank if they had known its operation was not in accordance with U.S. laws. The suits allege the advisers failed to study Stanford's holdings adequately before recommending the investments. In addition to Wampold, other plaintiffs in the latest state court suit are Kenneth Bird, Teresa Lamke, Antonio Carrillo and Maria Carrillo, and Herman Thibodeaux. Other Stanford brokers named as defendants are Ronald Clayton, Charles Jantzi and John Schwab, all of Baton Rouge; Hope Bellelo, of Maringouin; and Tiffany Angelle, of Lafayette. Pershing LLC also is named as a defendant. Clayton, Jantzi, Schwab and Angelle also were among 66 financial advisers in Louisiana and seven other states sued April 15 for more than $40 million by a court-appointed receiver trying to recover billions from Stanford's empire. Source.

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