Stanford's charm short-lived for women, investors

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Allen Stanford, the billionaire Texan at the center of a fraud investigation that spans three continents, charmed women as well as investors and has left an angry trail of both.

Stanford, 58, was charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Tuesday with fraudulently selling $8 billion in certificates of deposit with impossibly high interest rates from his Stanford International Bank LTD (SIB), headquartered in Antigua.

The case has left investors in the United States and Latin America reeling as they rushed to try to recover money they invested in Stanford's organization.

But a divorce filing in Texas and a paternity lawsuit in Florida open a window into Stanford's luxurious lifestyle.

Court papers show his possessions included private planes and helicopters, yachts, sailboats, expensive cars, estates in Coral Gables, Florida, St. Croix in the Virgin Islands and Antigua in the West Indies.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation served Stanford with court papers on Thursday in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where the family of a woman said in media reports to be his girlfriend has a home. He has not been arrested and has not been charged with any crime.

His whereabouts had been the subject of intense speculation since Tuesday after he failed to respond to an SEC subpoena

.

The SEC said on Friday that Stanford and his two co-defendants, James Davis, SIB's chief financial officer, and Laura Pendergest-Holt, chief investment officer of a Stanford affiliate, had surrendered their passports in keeping with a judge's order.

UNHAPPY TRAILS

Susan Stanford is suing for divorce in Texas.

Louise Sage, who bore Stanford two children, though they never married, filed a paternity lawsuit in Florida. Sage and Stanford later settled the lawsuit.

Sage filed her lawsuit as "Louise Sage Stanford," though her lawyer in the case, Maurice Jay Kutner, said that she and Allen Stanford were never married.

"His morality with the females was not necessarily reflective of his business skills," said Richard Goswick, son of O.Y. Goswick, a Stanford board member who had a stroke several years ago and can no longer communicate.

Richard Goswick knows Stanford because both families are from Mexia, a small town in east central Texas.

James Stanford, Stanford's 81-year-old father, told Reuters that his son has six children from several women. At least two are from a woman he did not marry, the elder Stanford said.

Allen Stanford lives in the United States and the Caribbean, primarily St. Croix and Antigua. He and his company have lavished money on international sports including cricket, sailing, tennis and golf.

Susan Stanford married him in 1975, seven years after he graduated from high school in Forth Worth, Texas. The couple has long been separated.

She filed for divorce in November 2007, and the case is still pending. Her lawyers have asked Allen Stanford to pay $225,000 in attorney's fees to one of Susan Stanford's lawyers, plus smaller amounts to other lawyers.

In state court filings in Texas, she has asked the court to award her "exclusive use and control" of two Mercedes, a Porsche Boxster, a home in Houston's upscale Tanglewood neighborhood and a condominium in a Houston building called the Huntingdon, where the widow of former Enron chairman Ken Lay lives.

Susan Stanford has also asked the court to grant her access to community assets including the estates in Antigua and St. Croix, all jets, yachts and access to VIP suites for events including Houston Rockets professional basketball games.

Stanford, who was knighted in Antigua and is known as "Sir Allen," in the past has ruffled the well-mannered world of international cricket by partying with the players' girlfriends. He was once photographed with the wife of a member of the English national cricket team sitting on his knee.

(Reporting by Anna Driver and Robert MacMillan; Editing by Toni Reinhold)