Stanford Victims Demand Recovery through SIPC, SEC and IRS Codes Modifications

We are among the thousands of innocent people who have lost our life's savings because of the Stanford fraud. We invested with an American brokerage firm that was regulated by the SEC, and whose brokers were members of FINRA and SIPC. We purchased certificates of deposit that were sold and marketed under the SEC’s and FINRA’s direct watch. These deposits were registered with the SEC and we paid taxes on the interest. These were not investments made as an attempt to hide money in “tax shelters.” The US Treasury benefited from our investment success for many years.

We bought the Stanford CDs because we are risk adverse. We did our due diligence and researched Stanford’s track record with the SEC. Even our financial advisers bought these CDs. We were not trying to get rich quick and certainly could have found investments that had larger returns. The rates of return on our CDs have been highly inflated by the media.

We did not know that the SEC stopped its investigation of Stanford in 2006 at the demand of another agency, and left us "twisting in the wind." The SEC knew that it would eventually have to resume its investigation, and when it did, all of us would be wiped out. That’s where we stand today. We didn't sign up for that.

The US government is under the most extreme scrutiny ever. There is a lot of talk about a new era of transparency and accountability. The Stanford victims are prime examples of why these issues are so critical. We are devastated families facing complete financial disaster. We are war veterans, children going without medical care, retirees who did everything right for decades only to have the SEC pull the rug out from under us and ruin our lives. It is painfully obvious how badly the SEC failed us. Their regulatory negligence is widely known. Government accountability is a joke when the SEC openly admits our life’s savings went down the drain because they didn’t do their jobs. What does it mean that our tax dollars went to fund an entity that did absolutely nothing to protect us? It is time the US government step up and show it does not abuse its citizens and does not take government accountability lightly.

Allen Stanford initiated the fraud that has so badly hurt our families, but the SEC provided him with the framework to allow his scam to penetrate in to the very fiber of what our country says it stands for. The SEC allowed Stanford to rob us of our American dream, effectively stealing our retirements and our basic rights as US citizens.

You can be a hero for thousands of Americans and help us by fixing this horrible wrong that began with Stanford and ended with the SEC. This is our request:

1. Add a line to the Securities Investor Protection Act statute, possibly after 78fff, to include fraud protection for securities registered and sold in the U.S. including Regulation D securities(just like FDIC does for bank accounts).

2. Add a line to US Tax Code, possibly in Section 165(E), to allow IRA and Roth accounts to qualify for theft loss deductibility, so that victims like us can deduct whatever SIPC does not cover from our taxes (similar to the non-IRA account losses).

3. Allow the theft loss tax deductions to be carried back as many years as needed to recover our losses.

4. Add a line to the statute that created the SEC and require the SEC to make provisions to restore all losses suffered by subsequent victims whenever the SEC suspends an investigation.

5. Make these changes effective January 2009.