United States v. Bruce Perraud and Thomas Raffanello - Court Docket Number: H 09- 60129-CR-Zloch
This case is assigned to the Honorable William J. Zloch, United States District Court Judge for the Southern District Florida, United States Courthouse, 299 East Broward Boulevard, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. A calendar call was held on September 18, 2009. A status hearing was held on October 6, 2009. A motions hearing as to both defendants has been postponed until October 23, 2009 at 10:00 a.m. before Magistrate Judge Robin Rosenbaum in Courtroom 310-B, 299 E. Broward Blvd., Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Trial is set for Tuesday, January 19, 2010, at 9:30 a.m., in Courtroom A before Judge Zloch.
On September 10, 2009, Bruce Perraud, a former global security specialist at the Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, office of Stanford Financial Group (SFG), headquartered in Houston, Texas, and Thomas Raffanello, the former global director of security at SFG’s Ft. Lauderdale office, were charged in a superseding indictment filed in the Southern District of Florida, which added defendant Raffanello and two charges to the original, May 2009 indictment stemming from a $7 billion investment fraud scheme. Perraud and Raffanello each are charged with one count of conspiracy to obstruct a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proceeding and to destroy documents in a federal investigation (Count 1: 18 U.S.C. § 371), one count of obstruction of a proceeding before the SEC (Count 2: 18 U.S.C. § 1505), and one count of destruction of records in a federal investigation (Count 3: 18 U.S.C. § 1519). According to court documents, SFG, headquartered in Houston, Texas, was the parent company of numerous affiliated financial services entities, including Stanford International Bank, Ltd. (SIBL), an offshore SFG bank affiliate located in St. John’s, Antigua.
According to the superseding indictment, SIBL lured U.S. investors to buy into its certificates of deposit (CDs) by touting investment returns not available through domestic banks. SIBL is alleged to have misrepresented that it held $8 billion in client funds that had been invested primarily in its CDs. On February 16, 2009, the SEC filed a complaint against SIBL, and its affiliated entities, in which it alleged that the SIBL CD program was the mechanism by which the principals of SIBL orchestrated a “massive, ongoing fraud.” On February 16, 2009, a receiver was appointed to assume exclusive control of all SFG-related entities in order to protect SIBL assets from potential waste and depletion by SIBL’s principals. In addition, the District Court for the Northern District of Texas issued an order instructing that all SFG and SIBL employees preserve all company documents and records, protecting them from destruction.
The superseding indictment alleges that the receiver sent an e-mail on February 17, 2009, to all SFG employees describing the contents of the court order mandating document and record preservation and further instructed SFG employees that they had been ordered to preserve “any and all documents, notes and records,” and that they may not “hide, destroy or alter any document or electronic record relating to the company.”
According to the allegations in the superseding indictment, Perraud placed a telephone call to Raffanello on February 17, 2009, in which he discussed the court order mandating the preservation of documents. On February 23, 2009, Raffanello is alleged to have directed that the documents housed at SFG’s Ft. Lauderdale office be shredded. Perraud allegedly contacted a commercial shredding company on that same day and on February 25, 2009, a representative of the commercial shredding company arrived at SFG’s Fort Lauderdale offices, where he was met by Perraud. Perraud then supervised as a 95-gallon bin was packed with documents and was hauled to the shredder’s vehicle, where its contents and other documents were shredded.
In a related case in the Southern District of Texas, on June 19, 2009, the court also unsealed an indictment, filed under seal on June 18, 2009, charging Robert Allen Stanford, Laura Pendergest-Holt, Gilberto Lopez, Mark Kuhrt, and Leroy King each with conspiracy to commit mail, wire and securities fraud; wire fraud; mail fraud; and conspiracy to commit money laundering stemming from an investment fraud scheme. In addition, Stanford, Pendergest-Holt, and King are charged with conspiracy to obstruct a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation and obstruction of an SEC investigation. In another related case, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas also unsealed a criminal information, filed on June 18, 2009, charging co-conspirator James Davis, former chief financial officer for SFG and SIBL, with conspiracy to commit mail, wire and securities fraud; mail fraud; and conspiracy to obstruct a proceeding of the SEC.
An indictment is a formal accusation of criminal conduct, not evidence. The defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
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