FORT WORTH, Texas, April 26 (UPI) -- The Securities and Exchange Commission's Texas office repeatedly missed chances to stop a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, an agency audit said.
Similar to an inspector general report lambasting the SEC for missing the Bernard Madoff Ponzi operation in the early going, an inspector general's report said the Texas office failed three times to pursue a case against Allen Stanford, which allegedly ended with Stanford duping investors out of $7 billion, The Dallas Morning News reported Monday.
The report says Spencer Barasch, the head of the SEC's Texas office from 1998 to 2005, first vetoed a recommendation to pursue a case against Stanford in his first year at the job. Stanford was not arrested until 2009.
The case was not opened until 2006, after Barasch left his position.
Barasch declined to pursue Stanford because there were too few U.S. investors, it was difficult to subpoena an offshore bank and there were few victims complaining, the newspaper said.
Various attorneys have spoken up on Barasch's behalf, but the legal community was miffed by Barasch's application to represent Stanford two months after leaving the SEC.
After the SEC's ethics branch denied that request, he allegedly did some work for Stanford in October 2006, an issue that was brought to the attention of the State Bar of Texas, the News reported.
