Former Stanford Victims Coalition Director and Founder Angela Shaw Alexander.
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Editor’s Note: The original version of this feature included reference to an encounter with Ms. Alexander outside of 19th JDC in the aftermath of the jury verdict.
However, Ms. Alexander reached out to us and stated that was not her, nor was she in Baton Rouge for the trial. She also stated that she disbanded the Stanford Victims Coalition years ago and wanted to stress that she is not a party to the OFI litigation.
The article has been edited accordingly, and we regret the error.
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In our previous feature, we took Stanford victims’ attorney Phil Preis to task for blaming the jury for the outcome of the litigation in Lillie et. al. v. Louisiana Office of Financial Institutions (OFI).
Today, we want to profile Ms. Angela Shaw Alexander and her strong opinions that protection for the Stanford victims from the Securities Investors Protection Corporation (SIPC) should have been afforded up to the $500,000 limit.
As we have previously reported, Alexander was quoted in this Advocate article. Her quote follows:
“We will all forever be bound by this horrific crime no one else will ever comprehend. I can’t thank you enough for your support through the years,” Angela Shaw Alexander wrote in a group email shared with her fellow victims Friday night. “We’ve certainly experienced our share of injustices and judgement from the public. I have – and always will – carry your experiences with me. They’ve changed me in ways I can’t explain and without a doubt changed the trajectory of my life in several ways.”
Here is the video on Ms. Alexander to include a letter to SIPC and Congressional testimony buttressing her beliefs that SIPC coverage should have been afforded to the victims:
August 23, 2024: Burns elaborates on former Stanford Victims Coalition’s Founder and Director, Angela Shaw Alexander, and her contentions that SIPC coverage should have been provided to the Stanford Victims.
As Burns indicated early on in the video, a table would be provided with key dates of the Stanford Ponzi scheme and fallout thereafter. Here is that table:
| Date of Event | Event |
|---|---|
| February 17, 2009 | U. S. regulators and law enforcement suspend all Stanford operations and freeze all accounts. |
| September 14, 2010 | Angela Shaw Kogutt sends this terse letter to SIPC President & CEO Stephen Harbeck. |
| June 15, 2011 | SEC notifies SIPC that Stanford victims may be eligible for the $500,000/account protection for insolvent brokerages for which securities have been misappropriated. |
| Sometime between June 15, 2011 and December 12, 2011. | SIPC offers to pay each Stanford victim up to $250,000 even though it strongly denies those victims are covered under SIPC's criteria for covering losses. |
| December 12, 2011 | After Stanford victims resoundingly reject the $250,000 offer from the SIPC, the SEC sues the SIPC indicating FULL coverage (of up to $500,000 per account) should be applicable. |
| July, 2012 | U. S. District Judge sides with SIPC and dismisses SEC litigation. SEC appeals. |
| November 21, 2013 | Angela Shaw Kogutt testifies before Congress entailing "reform" of SPIC coverage. |
| September 11, 2014 | Following a loss at the Washington DC Appeals Circuit, the SEC announces it will abandon its pursuit of SIPC recovery for Stanford victims. |
As Burns indicated, here’s the link on the SIPC’s website for what’s covered and what is not. From that feature:
SIPC protects against the loss of cash and securities – such as stocks and bonds – held by a customer at a financially-troubled SIPC-member brokerage firm. The limit of SIPC protection is $500,000, which includes a $250,000 limit for cash. Most customers of failed brokerage firms are protected when assets are missing from customer accounts.
SIPC protection is limited. SIPC only protects the custody function of the broker dealer, which means that SIPC works to restore to customers their securities and cash that are in their accounts when the brokerage firm liquidation begins.
SIPC does not protect against the decline in value of your securities. SIPC does not protect individuals who are sold worthless stocks and other securities. SIPC does not protect against losses due to a broker’s bad investment advice, or for recommending inappropriate investments.
In concluding this feature, just as was the case throughout most of the trial, Stanford victims attorney Preis and Phelps Dunbar defense attorney Dennis Blunt could agree on little, and such remains the case with regard to the final judgment reflecting the trial’s outcome. Accordingly, here is Preis’ proposed judgment and here is Blunt’s proposed judgment.
Mr. Preis indicates in the Local Rule 9.5 disclosure that, “Counsel for OFI opposed Class Members’ Proposed Judgment because OFI does not think that the duty language from the Jury Verdict Form indicating OFI owed a duty to class members to be included in the final judgment.”
Nevertheless, we note the following differences in the final order on the judgment itemizations of orders from each respective document:
Preis:
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED that all claims of PLAINTIFFS in this lawsuit are hereby dismissed, with prejudice.
Blunt:
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED that all claims of PLAINTIFFS seeking to hold OFI liable for reckless conduct are hereby dismissed, with prejudice.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED that, in light of the July 22, 2021 voluntary dismissal of claims and the foregoing dismissal of claims in accordance with the Jury Verdict, this judgment shall be the FINAL JUDGMENT in this matter, as all claims
presented in this case have been adjudicated.
We will certainly await which judgment Judge Johnson signs and, if applicable, any changes he may make to the proposed judgment that he does sign.
We will also monitor court filings to see if Preis lives up to his indication that he would file a Motion for Judgment Notwithstanding Verdict or, in the Alternative, a New Trial.
In short, we will continue to diligently stay on top of this entire case until it is officially over.
When you strip away all the noise, this is just a group of people that made a bet and lost and now they are trying to get the taxpayers of Louisiana to cover their losses.
CDs are not stocks, bonds, or typical investments, they are deposits. We deposit our money in banks and banks in turn invest that money. Sometimes those investments go bad, sometimes insiders steal the money, sometimes a bank fails. Between 2008 and 2012, 465 U.S. banks failed, some of them for the very same reasons as Bank of Antigua (Fraud). In the U.S., the FDIC insures deposits (up to a point), which dramatically reduces risk. That is not the case in foreign banks.
According to Mr. Burns, Ms. Alexander spent a decade working for the Federal Reserve, which is one of the premiere banking regulators in the U.S. She decided to deposit her money in a foreign bank with the full knowledge that her deposit was not insured. How do we know this? She went as far as to hire a law firm to conduct due diligence. She knew there was risk and was willing to accept the risk for a higher return. She made a bet and lost!! Now she wants the taxpayers of Louisiana, many of whom are living paycheck to paycheck, to bail the victims out.
To illustrate the point, here is a very similar case where the CEO defrauded a bank and it failed. Sound familiar? The difference here is it was a U.S. bank, the FDIC stepped in, and depositors didn’t lose a dime. The irony is this bank was supervised by the very agency where Ms. Alexander spent over a decade working, The Federal Reserve. https://oig.federalreserve.gov/reports/board-material-loss-review-heartland-tri-state-bank-feb2024.pdf
Both Ms. Alexander and Mr. Preis, who is a former bank examiner, are fully aware of the risk of placing deposits in a foreign bank. They know this exact scenario, where a bank fails, is not unique. They also know what happens when someone deposits money in a bank that fails. The OFI had absolutely nothing to do with these individuals deciding to take a risk for higher returns. In fact, based on Soundoff’s coverage, it appears Mr. Preis never called a single witness that testified that OFI did anything wrong, not one. At the end of the day, they were looking for a sympathy handout, and it cost the state of Louisiana hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend.