Just when you thought R. Hunter Biden’s retirement as a lobbyist had removed the possibility his business dealings might embarrass his father, comes a report that he and his uncle had business ties with Texas financier R. Allen Stanford.
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that a fund of hedge funds run by Vice President Joseph Biden’s son and his brother, James, through New York-based Paradigm Global Advisers was marketed exclusively by companies controlled by Stanford.
It’s hard to know what to make of the connections at this point, especially since an attorney representing Paradigm, as well as Hunter and James Biden, said neither man had any contact with Stanford.
According to the Journal report:
The $50 million fund was jointly branded between the Bidens’ Paradigm Global Advisors LLC and a Stanford Financial Group entity, and was known as the Paradigm Stanford Capital Management Core Alternative Fund. Stanford-related companies marketed the fund to investors, and also invested about $2.7 million of their own money in the fund, according to a lawyer for Paradigm.
Paradigm Global Advisors is owned through a holding company by Hunter and James Biden.
Attorney Marc X. LoPresti told the Journal that the fund had terminated its relationship with Stanford’s companies last week after the SEC filed civil charges against him.
In addition, he said, Paradigm has offered to turn over the $2.7 million investment it got from Stanford’s firm to a court-appointed receiver in the SEC’s case. LoPresti said he didn’t know which Stanford entity invested the roughly $2.7 million.
LoPresti dismissed the notion that the Bidens had had any relationship with Stanford.
“There is no connection between the Bidens and Allen Stanford or Stanford period, full stop,” he told the Journal. “There never was any meeting between any member of the Biden family, no phone calls, zero correspondence.”
A Paradigm marketer, Jeffrey Schneider, reportedly brought in the Stanford business. Stanford would bring clients to the fund and Paradigm would manage it, according to LoPresti. The fund is mentioned on the Web site of a Stanford entity called Stanford Trust Co. as one of its “investment management strategies.”
Stanford was charged by the SEC last week with fraudulently selling $8 billion in certificates of deposit with improbably high interest rates from his Stanford International Bank Ltd (SIB), headquartered in Antigua. To date, no criminal charges have been brought.
Muckety wrote earlier about concerns that Hunter Biden’s dealings as a lobbyist and consultant might be damaging to his father. We also noted several lawsuits against Paradigm stemming from the Bidens’ 2006 purchase of the company.
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