Giannos and Stanfield on the run, arrest warrant issued
After being found guilty of promoting the the uFun Club Ponzi scam to Samoans, Nicolas Giannos and Rosita Stanfield were ordered to attend a sentencing hearing on February 2nd.
Chief Justice Palu remanded Giannos and Stanfield at liberty, which meant they were free until the sentencing hearing.
Yesterday saw the scheduled sentencing hearing take place, with both Giannos and Stanfield failing to appear.
Chief Justice Patu has since issued an arrest warrant, with Samoan police now hunting the fugitives.
Last June the court confiscated Giannos and Stanfield’s passports, but whether the pair are now still in Samoa is unclear.
The Chief Justice said when the defendants are caught, they will be placed under police custody until another date is settled for their appearance in Court.
The no-show suggests both Giannos and Stanfield suspected they’d be given hefty sentences. Rather than face the music however, they thought it best to flee.
Stay tuned for further developments…
Update 4th February 2016 – Quoting Giannos and Stanfield’s lawyer, the Samoa Observer is reporting:
It is correct that a warrant was initially issued by the court after 10am when the matter was called but His Honour Chief Justice subsequently stood down the matter for 12:30pm same day.
It was re-called at 12:30pm and the Defendants appeared.
The Defendants did not appear at 10am on my advice that the matter would not be called given that we had filed an appeal.
The status of the appeal in light of the sentencing hearing going ahead is as of yet unclear. Ditto the outcome of the hearing itself.
Well, if they escaped to Malaysia, forget about them being extradited back to Samoa. I can’t believe they let them out, and then without being monitored.
It’s a small island, but then it’s also relatively easy to hire a boat and just run for it.
Depends on how big the Samoans want to take this, they can hypothetically issue an Interpol Red Notice for this.
Maybe decision to allow them to remain free until sentencing is due to influence “in high places”. Stanfield does apparently have a sister working in a Govt. dept!!
Generally you don’t put civil cases and non-violent suspects in jail.
I agree with you, but in this case they should have been considered a flight risk.
If not in jail awaiting sentencing, then a tight monitoring of them to avoid what they ended up doing…. running.
Article updated with purported clarification from Giannos and Stanfield’s lawyer.
No news yet on the outcome of the sentencing hearing.
So the lawyer was late in filing the appeal, so the judge didn’t see it?
Hilarious.
Not sure when the appeal was filed. The guilty verdict was handed down late December so they’ve had over a month to file it.
Why the lawyer didn’t check the court schedule and see the hearing was on is a mystery. Seems kind of suss to me.
Mind you this is the same guy who argued the legality of pyramid schemes, so anywhoo…
sentencing under s.172 of the Crimes Act 2013 of samoa is as follows:
it seems that even impending jail time will not discourage rosita stanfield from getting her ponzi ‘fix’.
while she awaits sentencing for promoting ufun in samoa, she is promoting the global ponzi scheme of MMM:
talk about ‘thick skinned’!!
I think the whole uFun Club/Unascos collective has moved onto MMM Global.
Kind of shows you that, despite all the denials, it was really the Ponzi business model they were attracted to all along.