WASHINGTON — As Congress returns to a radically realigned Washington this week, most lawmakers’ attention will be glued to energy, immigration and spending bills as the new Republican-led majority asserts itself. But behind the headlines, many victims of Allen Stanford’s massive Ponzi scheme will be looking for help, too. They want Congress to rewrite the rules for a large, government-created insurance fund that has yet to pay them a penny. About 20,000 investors worldwide lost $5.5 billion in capital when federal authorities halted Stanford’s scheme in 2009. But first, they’ll have to persuade the Dallas congressman whose voice against their proposal probably counts most in the Capitol. More in the Dallas Morning News [...]

Sometimes the federal judiciary rules in favor of small investors who lose their savings to slick promoters like Robert Allen Stanford, of Houston, Texas. On other occasions, federal judges can crush those same investors. That was the roller coaster ride federal courts provided in 2014 for about 1,000 Louisiana residents and more than 20,000 people in other states and countries. By year’s end, those towering ascents and stomach-churning plunges left diminished hope of recovering much of the $5.5 billion to $7 billion estimated to have been swindled from people who placed their savings with Stanford Group Co. That firm and its sister companies were shut down by federal regulators in February 2009. More in The Advocate [...]