Bloomberg is reporting that Texan financier Allen Stanford is scheduled to go on trial on September 12 in Houston on charges he led a US$7 billion investor fraud. Jury selection will begin on this day.
Stanford, 61, was indicted in June 2009 on 21 criminal charges that he duped investors about the safety of certificates of deposit issued by his Antigua-based Stanford International Bank Ltd. Last week, prosecutors re-indicted the financier on narrower charges, dropping seven allegations.
Saying that the superseding indictment contained “no basic changes in the relevant counts,” U.S. District Judge David Hittner yesterday signed an order setting Stanford’s trial to start with jury selection in about four months.
Stanford, who became well-known in the Caribbean after inaugurating a wildly popular Twenty/20 cricket tournament, has been in jail as a flight risk since he was detained almost two years ago. His trial was to begin Jan. 24, until Hittner postponed the case to allow Stanford to undergo drug rehabilitation in a prison facility.
Stanford was found mentally unfit to assist in his defence as a result of an addiction to prescription anxiety drugs he acquired while in prison. Stanford has been undergoing detox treatment at the hospital unit at the federal prison in Butner, North Carolina, since mid-February.
“Our client has been found incompetent and is currently still in Butner,” Ali Fazel, one of Stanford’s criminal-defence lawyers, told Bloomberg yesterday. He declined to comment further, citing the judge’s order not to discuss the case publicly.
The criminal case is U.S. v. Stanford, 09-cr-342, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas (Houston).
Analysts in the region say that Stanford used his cricket involvement in the Caribbean to mobilize more money for the Ponzi-like CD scheme that he ran. Several local institutions have had to write-off sums invested with Stanford’s Antigua bank as there is virtually no prospect of a recovery.
Hand-in-Hand Trust Corporation had $822M invested in Stanford CDs and has had to write this off. Hand-in-Hand had told Stabroek Business in March 2009 that the amount represented 10.6 per cent of the Trust’s deposits and 9.2 per cent of its gross assets.
