State of Stanford's defense may leave questions

I can see Stanford trying to use this as a reason for a mistrial or an appeal if/when he is found guilty. Let's hope Hitner covers any exit doors during the trial.

By Loren Steffy, 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.

The court has a limited budget from which to pay for indigent defense, and Stanford's share isn't nearly enough to address a case that as convoluted and globe-spanning as his. After balking at bills for the expert witnesses, the appeals court that controls his defense budget granted partial payment and ordered the experts to continue preparing for trial.

Then, according to Wednesday's filing by Stanford's lawyers, Hittner cut off pay for a jury consultant who had been helping the defense team prepare for the trial.

"As a result of the funding issues in this case and in light of the current trial deadlines, the defense will be compelled to try the case without having had the resources necessary to render constitutionally adequate representation, while the government has been entirely unfettered by any financial resource constraints," one of Stanford's attorneys, Ali Fazel, wrote in the filing.

The back-and-forth court decisions and the budget constraints have placed the defense in such an "untenable position" that they "cannot represent the accused competently," Fazel wrote.

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

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.

What's more, Stanford's incarceration - which for much of 2011 was in North Carolina and which included stays in solitary confinement - has made it difficult for him to review defense materials, Fazel argued.

Wanting answers

It's hard to feel sorry for Stanford, whose firm wiped out the savings of many of his 22,000 investors. Justice may be served despite his hobbled defense, but in a case rife with questions about Stanford's political influence and why the government took so long to take action against him, the trial isn't likely to provide many answers.

Allen Stanford lawyers want out just before trial

By Jonathan Stempel | Reuters

Just 12 days before jury selection is to begin in a much-delayed case, lawyers for Allen Stanford, accused of running a $7.2 billion Ponzi scheme, have asked to withdraw from the case.

The request by Ali Fazel and Robert Scardino is the latest twist in a case in which Stanford, once believed to be a billionaire but who later claimed to be indigent, has employed roughly 14 different lawyers, and spent several months under medical care after being ruled incompetent to stand trial.

Fazel and Scardino, who were appointed by the court and are being paid with public funds, had previously sought to delay jury selection beyond the scheduled January 23 date.

In a joint filing on Wednesday with the U.S. District Court in Houston, they said rulings by the presiding judge David Hittner, budget matters and non-public issues make it "untenable" for them to stay on the case.

"The time and budgetary constraints imposed on defense counsel have operated to deprive the accused of counsel who are adequately prepared to render the constitutional threshold of effective assistance," they said. "Counsel cannot represent the accused competently."

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment.

It is unclear whether Hittner will grant the withdrawal request.

On December 28, he called the public interest in a speedy trial "particularly acute," citing charges that Stanford caused billions of dollars of losses and noting that the defendant has been in detention for 2-1/2 years since his June 2009 arrest.

"This case needs to be tried," he wrote.

Prosecutors accused Stanford of deceiving thousands of investors into buying bogus certificates of deposit from his Antiguan bank, Stanford International Bank Ltd.

The defendant faces a 14-count indictment in one of the largest white-collar fraud cases since Bernard Madoff was arrested in December 2008 for his Ponzi scheme, in which older investors are paid with money from newer investors.

Stanford also faces civil fraud charges by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in a separate case.

Former SEC lawyer Spencer Barasch is expected, without admitting wrongdoing, to settle Justice Department civil charges over an apparent conflict of interest when he did some work for Stanford after leaving the Commission, people familiar with the matter have said.

The case is U.S. v. Stanford, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas, No. 09-00342.