Accused fraud mastermind R. Allen Stanford, ruled incompetent to stand trial because of addiction to drugs he’s received while in federal custody, is being moved from Houston to a different detention facility.
Traci Billingsley, spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington, confirmed that Stanford has left the federal detention center in downtown Houston. She said the bureau does not disclose where inmates are going, and would not say whether Stanford is going to a drug treatment facility.
U.S. District Judge David Hittner ruled after a hearing in January that Stanford is incompetent to stand trial and must undergo detoxification from addictions to medications prescribed for anxiety and depression. A brain injury Stanford suffered in a 2009 altercation with another inmate also may have diminished his capacity to assist in his defense, the judge wrote, citing expert testimony in the hearing.
Stanford and other officers of his Houston-based Stanford Financial Group are accused of defrauding investors of $7 billion in a scheme based largely on certificates of deposit issued by a Stanford-owned bank on the Caribbean island of Antigua.
Stanford has been in federal custody as a potential flight risk since his arrest in June 2009. The other defendants are free on bail.
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