Texas financier R. Allen Stanford who was charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission this week with fraud to the tune of $8 billion, has retained Williams & Connolly -- the home of famed white collar attorney Brendan Sullivan -- to represent him, according to two sources familiar with the case. Calls to Williams & Connolly were not returned.

Stanford's financial empire, based in Houston, includes Stanford Financial Group, Stanford International Bank, as well as banks in Antigua, a lightly regulated Caribbean Island. In a civil complaint, the SEC alleged that Stanford enticed investors by promising very lucrative returns on certificates of deposit, but put their funds into a "black box" of assets that were hard to trade. According to the SEC, Stanford's ads for the investments claimed the CDs were safe and suggested the monies would be in "liquid" securities. But the complaint charged that a large part of the bank's portfolio was actually invested in private equity and illiquid real estate.

                                                                                                              -- Peter H. Stone