Attorney Defends Stoelker Integrity

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Tuesday, 17 July 2012 02:30

By caribarena news

Antigua St. John's - Attorney for Stanford Development Company (SDC) Hugh Marshall has refuted allegations that one of his clients, has been pilfering funds from the crumbling Stanford Empire.

Caribarena.com had received information regarding alleged misappropriation of Stanford Antigua assets and some of this information suggests that Stanford’s revocation of the Power of Attorney granted to Ms. Stoelker came as a result of the allegations.

Hugh Marshall said on Monday that as far as he was aware he was still the legal representative of the SDC and by extension R. Allen Stanford and although Stoelker no longer controlled the Stanford’s shares in the SDC, he still represented her to a certain degree.

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“As far as I know I have not been terminated nor have I resigned,” Marshall said.

He denied knowledge of the identity of the attorney who drafted the document revoking Stoelker’s control of the company.

Further, responding to claims that Stoelker had allegedly sold plots of land belonging to Stanford, Marshall said he had no knowledge of such transactions and noted that some 90 percent of Stanford assets remain intact. (On July 11 2012 AG Justin Simon had revealed that several parcels of land were sold, he did not identify any buyer/s).

As for the land issues, he said these lands were not sold but rather left the company through settlement transactions resulting from court rulings.

And since there were no third party transactions, the notion of a sale is unfounded, Marshall said.

“The settlements were basically to cover judgment debts. No money has changed hands. Very few Stanford properties were sold or parted with. $14M or so were settled in property,” Marshall said.

The attorney noted also that any role Stoelker played in these transactions was merely in her capacity as power of attorney for Stanford since she had authority to exercise his rights as shareholder and to conduct litigation on his behalf. He said she had no independent authority to sell any assets.

"The values on the land sales are not indicative of monies which have passed hands, they are indicative of debts which were honored," Marshall said.

Responding to information that Ms. Stoelker had allegedly sold multiple high value assets, including on-going businesses, commercial equipment, improved and un-improved commercial property, vehicles, gold, platinum, silver and diamond assets, water craft, furniture, fixtures, art work, quarried and cut stone, and other things, Marshall said he could not speak accurately to that since he was not present at every auction event that would have taken place from 2009 to the present.

Marshall said however that he has been involved in all dispositions of Stanford properties since February 2009 and he was not aware that there have been multiple sales.

“I have a list of what Stanford said he owned and 90% of those are still Stanford owned. I don’t know about a lot of the chattels (furnishings) personally. I gather that furniture (office and home), some cars and a small boat were sold. I don’t know about his personal items or jewelry. I have never seen his jewelry,” Marshall said.

Furthermore, Caribarena.com had received information that Andrea Stoelker had managed, or in the process to secure economic citizenship status in countries like Jamaica, Costa Rica, St. Kitts & Nevis and Cuba, questions about these were forwarded to the attorney.

Marshall said he too had received similar reports but inquiries about them with his client netted a negative response.

He said that he had received a faxed correspondence from a Fedex office supposedly from R. Allen Stanford himself suggesting that Stoelker had used SDC funds to secure these statuses, and that this constituted some grounds for the revocation of the PoA.



“I have seen a correspondence which has made that suggestion. I have received a fax from a Fedex office in an email format with Stanford’s signature suggesting this. I have not been able to verify that it actually came from him. I find it odd that Stanford would leave the state penitentiary and go to have this faxed to me when he has the means of email and telephone to communicate with me,” Marshall stated.

“I cannot see how Stanford would fax me an email. I am very suspicious of its origin. Some of it is completely untrue. She (Stoelker) has assured me that she has no economic citizenship in any of these countries,” Marshall added.

Moreover, Marshall has also refuted claims that Stoelker is an investment partner in a housing development project at Jumby Bay, having used valuable quarried building stones from SDC to construct the property.

He said the building materials in question were all sold, with some stolen, a long time ago and if some were being used in this project it was not within the control of Stoelker or the SDC.

“When something is sold by SDC all the proceeds have to go into a special account at ECCB and when an item is put up for sale the information of that sale is sent to the receiver and until that is resolved the sales don’t go through. This whole suggestion is very suspicious because both the liquidators and courts have put in place procedures to make sure that no one does that,” Marshall explained.

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