Allen Stanford says receiver is wasting his assets

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A court-appointed receiver overseeing the financial empire of Allen Stanford is wasting the company's assets, the Texas billionaire said in a statement filed in a U.S. court on Wednesday.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has filed civil charges against Stanford, two of his top aides and three of his companies of a long-running Ponzi scheme using high-yield certificates of deposit issued by his bank in Antigua.

The company assets were seized and put under the control of Dallas-based lawyer Ralph Janvey.

In a two-sentence filing, Stanford told U.S. Judge David Godbey that he objects to Janvey's appointment as receiver "because R. Allen Stanford believes the Receiver is wasting the assets of the Stanford entities and of R. Allen Stanford, rather than preserving them."

Janvey has frozen many accounts he believes are linked to the fraud in a bid to preserve assets for investors. Janvey did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Stanford's filing.

In court papers filed on Monday, Janvey said he has released 28,000 accounts, or 80 percent of the Stanford accounts, and allowing investors to intervene in the case will be disruptive.

Stanford submitted his comments "pro se," or without legal representation.

Stanford, a high-flying sports patron with luxury homes in the Caribbean, Texas and Florida, told a federal court in Dallas he has been unable to hire an attorney to represent him because his accounts have been frozen by Janvey.

He has been in talks with well-known Houston criminal lawyer Dick DeGuerin to put together a team to handle the civil and possible criminal charges, DeGuerin told Reuters last month.

Stanford expects to be indicted by a federal grand jury in the next two weeks, according to an ABC News interview released on Monday.

Stanford denied running a Ponzi scheme in the interview.

"I would die and go to hell if it's a Ponzi scheme," Stanford told the television network in an interview that took place late last week in Houston. "If it was a Ponzi scheme, why are they finding billions and billions of dollars all over the place?"

In a Ponzi scheme, early investors are paid returns from funds with later investors.

(Reporting by Chris Baltimore; Editing Bernard Orr)