re: Allen Stanford's Ponzi back in the news (Baton Rouge question)

It was a pretty big deal here in Tupelo. The Feds raided the Tupelo office at the same time as the Houston main office.

Tupelo

Chief Financial Officer James Davis and Chief Investment Officer Laura Pendergest-Holt were charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission of bilking investors out of more than $7 billion in high-yield certificates of deposit.

Both Davis and Pendergest-Holt had offices in SFG’s Tupelo office. Davis, who was Stanford’s college roommate, is a fifth-generation north Mississippian with family ties to the Baldwyn area; Pendergest-Holt is a native of Baldwyn.


• February 2011 – Stanford Financial’s former Tupelo office building in Fairpark is auctioned off.

• April 2011 – Southern Motion buys the former Forefront Golf facility in Baldywn that Davis opened.

• August 2011 – Baldwyn businessman Earl Stone buys seven downtown buildings that once belonged to Davis.

• December 2011 – Trustmark National Bank’s main Tupelo office opens in the former Stanford building.

• January 2012 – Trial begins for Davis. He is the prosecutor’s key witness in 2012 trials against Stanford and two ex-financial executives, and was credited with pressuring a guilty plea from Pendergest-Holt.

• March 2012 – Stanford convicted of 13 counts of fraud and sentenced to 110 years of prison.

• May 2012 – Pendergest-Holt indicted on one count of conspiring to obstruct a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into SFG and a second count of obstructing the investigation.

• June 2012 – Pendergest-Holt pleads guilty to one count and faces up to five years in prison.

• September 2012 – Pendergest-Holt is sentenced to three years in federal prison. She admitted she lied to the SEC hearing about Stanford investments and the integrity of its products.

• January 2013 – Davis is sentenced to five years in federal prison.