Ooo, the SEC has finally released the good stuff on Stanford Financial, the mini-Madoff Ponzi scheme that made $8 billion disappear. Incredibly, the company's Southern Christian leaders were big hypocritical frauds! Jesus hated money-lenders:

The new details from the SEC focus not only on top boss "Sir Allen" Stanford, but his top lieutenants, James Davis, and the firm's chief investment officer, Laura Pendergest-Holt. They seemed so wholesome! They both came up from small-town Mississippi, they worked in Memphis, and they loved Jesus:

Mr. Davis projected a wholesome image, drinking protein shakes and regularly working out in the gym or jogging, according to the former employee. Mr. Davis was also known as a deeply religious man, opening many Stanford Financial meetings with a prayer that Stanford executives would make the right investment decisions, according to another former financial adviser.

But you know what they loved more? Fraud, and lying about it to the SEC. When the chief investment officer got called in to tell the SEC about her company's "Tier III" holdings—which showcased the firm's worst financial irresponsibility, and which she had just been briefed on at work—she said, "If I knew anything about Tier III, I'd tell you ... God's honest truth."

This marks the first time religious people have lied. [NYT]