History
Kuhrt was found guilty by a federal jury in Houston on November 19, 2012, of aiding Robert Allen Stanford in a fraud scheme involving Stanford International Bank (SIB). [4] [5]
Evidence at Kuhrt's trial showed that he knew about and monitored Stanford's misappropriation of SIB's assets, concealed the misappropriation from the public and nearly every other Stanford employee, and worked behind the scenes to keep it from being discovered. Additionally, he assisted Stanford in deceiving SIB clients during the late 2008 financial crisis by claiming that Stanford had invested hundreds of millions of dollars in SIB when in fact he had not. Kuhrt assisted in the creation of a fraudulent real estate deal that involved inflating the value of land parcels that were bought for $63.5 million to a fictitious $3.2 billion. [6] [7] [8]
US Prosecutor Jeffrey Goldberg said Stanford could not have carried out the fraud without help. He said Kuhrt - in his post as global controller of Stanford Financial Group - actively covered up his boss’s fraud. [9] “Gil Lopez and Mark Kuhrt were faced with the same choice over and over again, to either help Allen Stanford lie to his customers and misuse their money or say ‘I don’t want to be part of it”. The men chose to “keep it secret and actively work to keep others from finding out about it.” added Goldberg during the trial. [10]
Former Stanford accountant Henry Amadio told jurors that he expressed his concerns to his former boss, Mark Kuhrt, regarding the increasing amount of investor funds being utilized to fund Stanford's other ventures. According to Amadio, Kuhrt "was concerned too." [11]
Kuhrt's trial lasted for five weeks. The jury deliberated for about three days before finding Kuhrt guilty on ten of the eleven counts in the indictment. He was found guilty on nine counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. On one count of wire fraud, Kuhrt was found not guilty. He was promptly remanded into custody following the trial. [4] [12]
On February 14, 2013 Kuhrt was sentenced to 20 years in prison. [13] [14] [15] In addition to the prison terms, U.S. District Judge David Hittner, who presided over the trial, sentenced Kuhrt to serve three years of supervised release and ordered Kuhrt to pay a $25,000 fine. Judge Hittner also found that Kuhrt obstructed justice by committing perjury at trial. [6] [16] [17]
The conviction was upheld by the appeals court on June 5, 2015. [18] [19]
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