Among many things, the Covid-19 pandemic has caused the sentencing of Antiguan fraudster Leroy King to be rescheduled to July 30 this year – due to his vulnerability to the virus.
This is according to King’s lawyer, Mark Carter, who said that King’s sentencing for the $7 billion investment fraud scheme was postponed by US District Court Judge David Hittner.
The fate of the former chief of the Financial Services Regulatory Commission (FSRC) was to be declared on April 24, after he pleaded guilty to his role in the Stanford International Bank Limited (SIBL) Ponzi scheme earlier this year.
Carter explained that King is also not permitted visitors and US probation personnel have not been permitted to interview him for the pre-sentence report.
The final pre-sentence investigation is expected to be completed by July 23 prior to the sentencing which is scheduled to take place in a Texas federal court in the United States.
The 74-year-old former Dickenson Bay resident admitted to two charges – conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of justice – in US federal court in January 2020.
King, who was extradited to the United States in November 2019, conspired with US financier Allen Stanford and others to obstruct the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) investigation into SIBL, which was based in Antigua and Barbuda.
The dual citizen of the US and Antigua and Barbuda is said to have facilitated Stanford’s criminal activities by hiding them from the SEC and other regulatory agencies.
Stanford is currently serving a 110-year prison sentence.
Five others were also convicted for their roles in the scheme and received sentences ranging from three to 20 years in federal prison.
King is the last remaining defendant in the SIBL scheme and could face up to 175 years behind bars.