A group of investors in Allen Stanford's alleged Ponzi scheme are demanding a powerful Texas congressman give them the same kind of support he showed Stanford when regulators shut down the alleged scam in February.
The Miami Herald reported Sunday that on February 17, the day the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Stanford with a massive fraud, Republican Congressman Pete Sessions wrote an e-mail to Stanford saying, "I love you and believe in you. If you want my ear/voice—e-mail."
The Herald says the Justice Department has launched a "sweeping" investigation into Stanford's ties to Sessions and other lawmakers from both parties. A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment to CNBC about the report, because it is "an ongoing case."
But the Stanford Victims Coalition, which claims to represent some 28,000 investors, is seizing on the report to demand Sessions come to their aid.
"While Congressman Sessions was writing that email to Allen Stanford on that fateful day in February," writes Coalition founder Angela Shaw in a letter to Sessions' office, "panic struck the lives of Stanford investors as they feared the worst—that their retirement plans, their children's' college savings, their life's savings would never be recovered."
Shaw, who lives in Sessions' Dallas Congressional District, notes that Sessions has been supportive of the Stanford investors in the past, including signing a letter from 48 members of Congress to SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro earlier this year seeking coverage for the investors under the Securities Investor Protection Act.