Victory in the Virgin Islands; on to R. Allen Stanford's defense?

Dallas lawyer Charles M. Meadows Jr. (pictured), who at last word was talking with Stanford International Bank chairman R. Allen Stanford about defending him from a civil complaint the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed last month, just won an acquittal for a Texas businessman in a big criminal case tried in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Meadows’ firm announced in a press release today that a federal jury in St. Croix this week acquitted his client, James W. Ferguson III, a certified public accountant from Amarillo, of charges of conspiracy, attempted tax evasion and fraud. In an indictment in July 2007, Ferguson, three other men and five companies were accused of fraudulently funneling more than $300 million through a management consulting business called Kapok Management between 1999 and 2002 to take advantage of a tax credit, the firm writes in the release. Meadows, who told Texas Lawyer on March 3 that he was flying to the Virgin Islands because the jury was ready to return a verdict, did not immediately return a telephone message left at his office. On March 2, Meadows, a partner in Meadows, Collier, Reed, Cousins & Blau, appeared on Stanford’s behalf at a hearing in the civil suit filed on Feb. 17 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas that alleges Stanford, the chairman of SIB, and others engaged in a $9.2 billion investment fraud. Meadows said on March 2 he was hired solely to obtain a continuance at that hearing, and negotiations with Stanford were continuing. Stanford may be taking note of Meadows’ courthouse win in the Virgin Islands.
-- Brenda Sapino Jeffreys