Client_News

The Houston Chronicle:

After three years, fallen billionaire R. Allen Stanford is set to go to trial in 10 days on charges he ran a $7 billion Ponzi scheme. Yet with the trial looming, his legal defense is in a shambles.

On Wednesday, his lawyers asked to withdraw from the case. A week before that, his expert witnesses quit because they hadn't been paid in three months.

Stanford's assets were frozen after his 2009 arrest, leaving him to rely on his company's insurance policy to pay for his defense. Stanford, who was denied bail and has remained in prison for almost three years, squandered most of the money on a revolving door of legal talent, going through 10 lawyers before the insurance company refused to pay for more.

Now, that money - like that of his investors - is gone. U.S. District Judge David Hittner has declared Stanford, who once reveled in a lavish lifestyle of private jets and Caribbean mansions, indigent. His current pair of lawyers is being paid with public funds.

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Phillip Hilder, a Houston defense attorney who isn't involved in the case, said, "The defense is put in a no-win situation."

Houston Defense Attorney Philip Hilder in Houston Chronicle Blog article

Hittner already told Stanford he can't have any more lawyers, so the judge is probably going to order the current legal team to see the case through.

Not like Enron

Stanford has become the anti-Skilling. Accused of complex financial crimes, his shoestring defense has little in common with the Enron executive's gold-plated and relentless legal campaign. Jeff Skilling still fights the charges against him, five years and tens of millions of dollars after his conviction.

"In Enron, you had a cohesive defense, you had clients who were not incarcerated, you had clients who were of a sound mind, and you had financial resources," said Hilder, who represented Enron whistle-blower Sherron Watkins, a government witness in Skilling's trial. "All of that is lacking in the Stanford case. It's just a comedy of missteps."

In filings last week, defense lawyers accused the government of violating Stanford's constitutional rights during his long pretrial incarceration because of injuries sustained in a beating he received from another inmate and an addiction to painkillers that resulted from those injuries that they say has left him mentally unable to aid in his defense.

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http://www.chron.com/business/steffy/article/Steffy-State-of-Stanford-s-defense-may-leave-2499417.php

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