Stanford's whereabouts again a mystery

By Jim Wolf

FREDERICKSBURG, Virginia. (Reuters) - Texas billionaire Allen Stanford was nowhere to be seen on Friday in this historic Virginia town, site of a fierce battle in the American Civil War and reputed through local lore to be haunted.

The home of relatives of a woman said to be a girlfriend of Stanford became a magnet for reporters and photographers, but there were no signs that anyone was inside.

Intense speculation had surrounded Stanford's whereabouts since Tuesday, when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil charges against him, two of his colleagues and three of his companies, accusing them of an $8 billion fraud.

Stanford, who failed to respond to a subpoena earlier this week, surfaced here on Thursday and was served with court papers related to the SEC charges.

An American flag fluttered in the cold breeze above the doorway of this modest, three-story brick house that belongs to relatives of Andrea Stoelker, according to a cross-referencing data bank and the Free Lance-Star, a Fredericksburg newspaper.

Stoelker is a former local resident identified in published reports as president of the board of directors of a cricket tournament that Stanford sponsored in Antigua, headquarters of his Stanford International Bank (SIB).

No one at the Stoelkers' house returned a message left on an answering machine that greeted callers: "You've reached the Stoelkers. We're not available to take your call right now. Please leave a message, and we'll call you back as soon as possible."

Late in the afternoon, a young man dressed in jeans and who looked to be in his 30s, emerged from the house and stood at the top of the front steps. When asked about Stanford's whereabouts, he said, "I don't have a clue," and quickly turned to go inside. He declined to give his name.

The FBI said its agents were acting at the request of the SEC when they served Stanford with papers in Fredericksburg, about 50 miles (80 km) south of Washington, D.C.

"We were helping out there to locate and serve papers," said Bill Carter, an FBI spokesman in Washington. Stanford, 58, was not taken into custody, Carter said. He declined to discuss how Stanford had been located. Other officials said he was not a fugitive and had not been hiding.

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

Callahan declined to comment on when and where the passports had been given up.

Also uncertain was an ABC News report that Stanford had retained attorney Brendan Sullivan of Williams & Connolly.

When asked about the ABC report, one of Sullivan's assistants, Rhonda Meadows, told Reuters early Friday: "Mr. Sullivan has not been retained."

A Free Lance-Star reader e-mailed the paper Thursday night, saying Stanford had picked up a tab for the reader's family dinner at a local restaurant, Claiborne's, on November 7 after the family agreed to give up its earlier reservation time.

The reader wrote that he had introduced himself as Allen Stanford, said he lived in the Virgin Islands and that his girlfriend's parents lived in the area.

According to a local tour operator, Fredericksburg has a reputation as "one of the most haunted locales in the United States."

"With a long history dating back to preColonial times, and a legacy of slavery and war, it is no wonder that so many unhappy phantoms wander the streets," the tour operator says in promotional material.

The Battle of Fredericksburg was fought in the area in December 1862.

(Reporting by Jim Wolf; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Toni Reinhold)