Stanford executive makes plea deal
HOUSTON - The former chief financial officer of indicted Texas financier R. Allen Stanford’s business empire will plead guilty to charges alleging he helped swindle investors out of $7 billion, his lawyer said yesterday.
James M. Davis, 60, Stanford Financial Group’s former chief financial officer, reached a deal with prosecutors in which he will plead guilty to three counts he faces as part of the federal government’s criminal case against the Texas financier, attorney David Finn said.
Davis is set to make his initial court appearance in Houston on July 13. Finn said Davis will not enter his guilty plea until a later court hearing.
“We are cooperating and will continue to do so,’’ Finn wrote in an e-mail yesterday.
Ian McCaleb, a Justice Department spokesman, declined to comment.
Stanford and executives Laura Pendergest-Holt, Gilberto Lopez, and Mark Kuhrt of his now-defunct Houston-based Stanford Financial Group are accused of orchestrating a massive Ponzi scheme.
