Stanford Exec Sues Proskauer Partner, Says He Put Her in SEC Frying Pan
Blaming a former company lawyer for the criminal case against her, an executive of Stanford Financial Group has sued the lawyer, Thomas Sjoblom, and Proskauer Rose, the firm at which he is a partner.
“He essentially dropped her in the grease,” attorney Tony Buzbee, who represents Laura Pendergest-Holt in the malpractice case, tells Houston Chronicle. She is the company’s chief investment officer.
The suit contends that Sjoblom, while accompanying Pendergest-Holt to meetings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as counsel for the company, didn’t adequately represent her own personal interests and inform her of her Fifth Amendment rights, according to the newspaper. In an apparent conflict of interest allegation, it also contends that Sjoblom represented Stanford Financial Group Chairman R. Allen Stanford and his companies, rather than her own personal interests.
The malpractice case was filed today in federal court in Dallas; the company is headquartered in Houston.
After a critical Feb. 10 meeting with the SEC, at which Sjoblom allegedly was present, Pendergest-Holt was charged in late February in federal court in Houston with obstructing an SEC investigation into her employer by withholding information.
Neither Sjoblom nor the law firm responded to the Chronicle’s requests for comment. He no longer represents the Stanford company.
As discussed in earlier ABAJournal.com posts, R. Allen Stanford is accused by the SEC in a federal civil complaint filed in Dallas of running a multibillion-dollar Ponzi operation. However, he has not been criminally charged, and Stanford fired back, through his lawyer, in multiple interviews this week, contending in at least one that he is “not a swindler” and blaming regulators for causing an investor panic that wreaked havoc with his companies.
Earlier coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Stanford Lawyer Hits SEC ‘Storm Troopers,’ Says His Client is No Madoff”
ABAJournal.com: “Stanford Official Charged With Lying to SEC Testified Without Her Own Lawyer”
ABAJournal.com: “Amended SEC Complaint Accuses Stanford, CFO of Running Ponzi Scheme”
ABAJournal.com: “Texas Billionaire R. Allen Stanford Accused By SEC of Operating ‘Massive’ Fraud”