Jurors in the trial of Allen Stanford said on Monday they couldn't come to a decision on whether the financier had carried out a $7 billion ponzi scheme, but they changed their mind on Tuesday and convicted him on all but one of 14 criminal counts. Stanford's scheme was the biggest fraud since Bernie Madoff's, Reuters notes, but the trial almost resulted in a hung jury. When the eight men and four women of the jury told U.S. District Judge David Hittner on Monday afternoon that, after four days of negotiations, it couldn't agree on whether or not Stanford was guilty, it looked for a brief moment like Stanford might avoid a conviction.

Hittner ordered the jurors to keep deliberating, and less than 24 hours later they announced that Stanford was guilty on 13 counts including mail and wire fraud, conspiracy, and obstructing an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The jury exonerated Stanford on one count of wire fraud. But he still faces nearly 20 years in prison for running the ponzi scheme from his Stanford International Bank in Antigua, which prosecutors said he used as his "personal ATM."

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Adam Martin