Thursday, December 22, 2011

Sir Allen Stanford: Competent for Trial (Globe and Mail)

I wrote early about this saga of some several billion disappearing, cricket, and helicopters here and here.  The next chapter finishes with a decision that he is competent to stand trial.  Apparently his skills at duping the legal system aren't as effective as those with his investors.
Texas billionaire Allen Stanford arrives at the Federal courthouse in Houston, in the custody of U.S. marshalls, in this June 25, 2009, file photo. - Texas billionaire Allen Stanford arrives at the Federal courthouse in Houston, in the custody of U.S. marshalls, in this June 25, 2009, file photo. | STEVE CAMPBELL/Reuters

Jailed financier Allen Stanford competent to stand trial: judge

HOUSTON— The Associated Press

U.S. District Judge David Hittner's decision came after a nearly three-day competency hearing for the disgraced financier. Mr. Stanford's trial is set for Jan. 23.Jailed Texas financier R. Allen Stanford is mentally competent to stand trial on charges he bilked investors out of $7-billion (U.S.) in a massive Ponzi scheme, a judge ruled Thursday

A forensic psychologist who helped treat Mr. Stanford at the prison hospital testified the financier is now competent, can think clearly after being taken off the drug and has not suffered brain damage from the jail fight.
Mr. Stanford had been declared incompetent in January due to an anti-anxiety drug addiction he developed while jailed in Houston. He spent more than eight months at a federal prison hospital in Butner, N.C., getting treatment for his addiction and being evaluated to determine if he had any long-term effects from being injured in a September, 2009, jail fight.
But four medical experts who testified on Mr. Stanford's behalf, including a neurologist and two forensic psychiatrists, said the financier suffered a traumatic brain injury in the jail fight that left him with severe memory loss and unable to think or communicate clearly.

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