|  | | 2009 News and Press Releases | | |
HEADLINE NEWS:
Stanford’s Raffanello Pleads Not Guilty in Shredding
Laurence Viele Davidson and Laurel Brubaker Calkins
Bloomberg. September 18, 2009
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EXCERPT: Thomas Raffanello, Stanford Financial Group’s global security director, pleaded not guilty to shredding documents in violation of a court order to preserve them for a federal investigation. Raffanello, 61, entered the plea today before U.S. Magistrate Robin Rosenbaum in federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Raffanello is the second security official charged with shredding records sought by prosecutors and securities regulators who accuse Stanford of bilking investors out of more than $7 billion through a scheme involving fake certificates of deposit. Raffanello is a former head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Miami office. “The case is a slap in the face to his otherwise stellar career,” Richard Sharpstein, Raffanello’s lawyer, said in an interview after the arraignment. “It’s no secret he went voluntarily to the FBI without a lawyer to explain the circumstances of shredding documents.” The shredding allegedly was carried out at Texas financier R. Allen Stanford’s Fort Lauderdale office. The indictment accuses Raffanello and Bruce Perraud, 42, with conspiracy, destroying records and obstructing a probe by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. […] The documents contained information on personnel and some of Stanford’s investors and didn’t include any financial records, he said. “None are considered mildly relevant to the investigation,” said Sharpstein, who described the court order a “vague and ambiguous.” […] The criminal charges say Raffanello and Perraud knew of the order on Feb. 17. About a week later, Raffanello called a shredding company and shortly after, Perraud oversaw four employees packing and hauling about 95 gallons of records to the shredding company’s shredder in a truck, according to the indictment. Perraud allegedly had employees bring records from cars in the Stanford parking lot to the shredding machine.
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