R. Allen Stanford, who was found guilty of operating a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, is likely to receive a sentence later this week that will require him to spend the rest of his life behind bars. If that happens, it will continue a pattern in which white-collar defendants convicted of committing large-scale fraud have received long prison terms, far longer than what has been meted out in the past. In March, Mr. Stanford, a Texas tycoon, was convicted on 13 counts of fraud and money laundering related to the collapse of Stanford International Bank, based in Antigua. Investors lost billions of dollars in what were billed as high-yield certificates of deposit but turned out to be largely worthless. Thousands of victims throughout the United States and the Caribbean were affected. Read New York Times report here.
