Monday, January 23, 2012

Jury selection for Stanford trial set to begin

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Three years after his arrest for an alleged $7 billion Ponzi scheme, R. Allen Stanford will head to trial this week.

Jury selection starts this morning, this comes after several delays in the trial.

Stanford's lawyers tried to convince the court their client was not competent to stand trial because he was addicted to anti-anxiety medication.

Stanford received treatment last year, but his attorneys still say he hasn't had the proper time to pour through thousands of documents and properly prepare for trial.

The disgraced financier has been behind bars since June 2009. He's accused of ripping off billions of dollars from investors.

U.S. District Judge David Hittner has denied multiple requests within the last month to postpone the trial any further.

"You don't have to be the perfect defendant. The law doesn't require you to have 100 percent of your emotions and mental faculties. You just have to be able to communicate with your counsel and understand what's going on. Stanford may not be the person he was years ago, but he is, what the courts say, good enough to go to trial," KTRK legal analyst Joel Androphy explained.

Stanford has been described as a flamboyant billionaire. Androphy says it will be tough for his attorneys to get jurors to feel sorry for him and find him not guilty, but the government has to prove in this case that Stanford himself, not his company or former executives, is behind the Ponzi scheme.

His former chief financial officer James Davis has already pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges and is expected to testify against Stanford in this trial.

Stanford's attorneys are expected to ask the judge for another delay this week.

Stay with Eyewitness News and abc13.com as we continue following this story.

(Copyright ©2012 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.) Get more Local »


local, sonia azad

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