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 here.