R. Allen Stanford’s attorney Robert S. Bennett was removed from his criminal-defence trial team yesterday by a federal judge after the indicted financier was declared unable to pay him or any private lawyer, according to Bloomberg.
U.S. District Judge David Hittner in Houston, who will preside over Stanford’s criminal trial, therafter relieved Bennett of his trial duties.
“Mr. Stanford has filed an affidavit of indigency, so we now have to appoint counsel at government expense,” Hittner said, according to Bloomberg.
He rejected three lawyers proposed by Stanford and appointed two who will be paid $125 an hour by taxpayers. Bennett charged Stanford as much as $1,000 an hour, according to court records.
Stanford, 60, is accused of engineering a US$7 billion investment fraud scheme centred on the sale of certificates of deposit by his Antigua-based Stanford International Bank Ltd. He maintains he is innocent.
He had been much liked in the Caribbean for arranging a wildly successful Twenty/20 tournament but it later became apparent that this was also being used to draw in funds for the certificates of deposit. His cricketing enterprise collapsed following the US fraud probe.
