There are two worlds that exist in the complicated mind of Allen Stanford. One sees him on horseback at George Bush’s Texas ranch, enjoying a laugh with England players’ wives and landing at Lord’s in a helicopter to vaunt his multi-billion-dollar empire.
The other sees him repeating ‘I’m innocent’ many times a week, worshipping Kevin Pietersen and, despite serving a 110-year prison sentence, maintaining his vision of being involved in cricket once again as he enters an eighth decade.
The 72-year-old, jailed for orchestrating the second-largest investor fraud in US history which saw victims rinsed of $7billion (£5.7bn), has only given one previous interview since his 2009 incarceration.
Realities of life in jail, where Stanford spends most of his days stewing away in an 8ft by 13ft cell with only a Bible for solace, could not be more marked for a man known for his flamboyant lifestyle.
‘I was running a good ship and doing things ethically and honestly, when the US government came in and said, “You’re nothing but a damn, sorry son of a bitch stealing from widows and orphans”,’ he claims.
On Thursday, he begins a final attempt to be freed on appeal by the US Supreme Court despite a jury convicting him on 13 counts of fraud in 2012.
If he is successful, he will attempt to return to pastures that once saw him charming the ECB into signing an infamous deal for five Twenty20 internationals involving England and the West Indies. England players apparently…
