(Bloomberg News) R. Allen Stanford, whose lawyers failed to convince a judge that he's mentally unfit to stand trial, was ordered to face a jury next month on charges he swindled investors of more than $7 billion. The trial is to begin with jury selection on Jan. 23.
Stanford's defense team argued unsuccessfully that his mental capacity was diminished by head injuries he suffered in a 2009 jailhouse assault and the effects of powerful anxiety medications prescribed in prison after the beating.
"I have found by a preponderance of the evidence that Stanford is competent to stand trial," U.S. District Judge David Hittner in Houston said yesterday in finding Stanford able to assist in his defense.
Hittner's ruling followed 2 1/2 days of debate over the extent of brain damage Stanford, 61, suffered from the assault and the extent to which he might be faking memory loss.
"He wants to con his way out of this case the same way he conned investors for more than 20 years," Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregg Costa told Hittner yesterday. "Don't let him do it."
Robert E. Cochrane, the psychologist who was Stanford's lead evaluator at the federal prison hospital in Butner, North Carolina, testified that the former financier failed every test designed to expose fakers.
Stanford's claim of complete retrograde amnesia, the loss of the memory of what happened before the event responsible, is "remarkable" because it is so rare, Cochrane said.
First Amnesia Report
Stanford first reported having lost his memory after he arrived at Butner in February, more than a year after the assault, the government said.
"Every doctor on the stand agreed that Mr. Stanford is not suffering from the complete retrograde amnesia he repeatedly claimed he had," Costa said. Once it is accepted that Stanford is exaggerating his memory loss, "it pulls the rug out from under all the other psychological problems he's reporting," the prosecutor said.
Ali Fazel, Stanford's lead lawyer, argued that all the examining doctors agreed "He's not right. There's something wrong with him."