By Laurel Brubaker Calkins - Dec 21, 2011
Indicted financier R. Allen Stanford, accused of leading a $7 billion investment fraud scheme, arrives for a hearing at the Bob Casey Federal Courthouse in Houston on Jan. 6, 2011.
R. Allen Stanford is suicidal and may never recover sufficiently from a jailhouse beating to stand trial next month on charges he ran a $7 billion Ponzi scheme, a doctor who examined him for the defense testified.
Defense lawyers and U.S. prosecutors argued for the second day in federal court in Houston over Stanford’s mental fitness. Stanford, 61, says he can’t remember family vacations, business dealings or romantic encounters with women because of the attack and because of anxiety drugs. The U.S. says he’s faking it.
Dr. Ralph Lilly, a neurologist, testified today that Stanford sustained “a major injury that required major surgery’’ in the 2009 inmate assault. Stanford is delusional and believes the government is out to destroy him, Lilly said. The doctor said he couldn’t predict when Stanford might be ready for trial.
“He’s at risk for suicide,” Lilly told U.S. District Judge David Hittner, citing an examination of Stanford this month. “His memory is like a crossword puzzle that’s fallen to the ground and doesn’t come together anymore.”
Lilly told the judge he didn’t know when or whether Stanford would be able to go on trial.
“I can’t say in the next month or ever,’’ he said.
Further Treatment
Depending on how Hittner rules, Stanford will undergo further treatment or face a trial Jan. 23 on charges of running a Ponzi scheme that cost investors more than $7 billion. If convicted, he could go to prison for the rest of his life.
Stanford has been imprisoned as a flight risk since his June 2009 indictment on charges of defrauding investors through a scheme built on allegedly bogus certificates of deposit at Antigua-based Stanford International Bank Ltd.
Stanford benefited from eight months of treatment in Butner, where he was successfully weaned from powerful anti- anxiety drugs prescribed after the assault, Lilly said. The lasting effects of the brain injury have left him depressed and occasionally hallucinatory, Lilly said.
“He’s delusional, paranoid and he feels the government has selected him to destroy him for whatever reason they may have,’’ Lilly testified. He said Stanford believes the U.S. wants to “make money off his businesses’’ and has tortured him.
Prison Psychologist
Robert E. Cochrane, a psychologist at the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ medical center in Butner, North Carolina, testified yesterday that Stanford failed every test designed to expose fakers. His claim of complete retrograde amnesia, loss of the memory of things that happened before the event that caused it, is “remarkable” because the condition is so rare, Cochrane said.
Lilly said today that Stanford is “absolutely’’ not faking his condition and isn’t even aware of the extent to which his mental faculties are impaired.
“His symptoms are characteristic of someone with a brain injury,’’ Lilly said. “His prognosis is limited.’’
The case is U.S. v. Stanford, 09-cr-342, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas (Houston).
Showing posts with label memory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label memory. Show all posts
Wednesday, 21 December 2011
Tuesday, 20 December 2011
Stanford due in court today (20th December 2011) for Competency Hearing
Accused Ponzi Schemer Lying About Having Amnesia, Say Prosecutors
Federal prosecutors say R. Allen Stanford, the financier accused of defrauding investors of $7 billion, is mentally competent to stand trial and is faking amnesia, according to court documents.
A competency hearing is scheduled for Tuesday 20th December 2011 in a Texas court.
Stanford, 61, pleaded not guilty to all charges and later claimed he developed amnesia after a fellow inmate assaulted him in 2009. His defense attorney said in separate documents that the inmate smashed Stanford's face into a pole and threw him onto the concrete floor.
But in their motion to have Stanford declared competent, U.S. attorneys said doctors at the federal prison in Butner, N.C., determined that Stanford was "not credible" when he said he was "completely amnestic to his life prior to the assault." Stanford said he could not remember past romances, vacations with his children or any details about his business operations.
Additional psychological testing, the motion says, prove he was lying and faking cognitive impairments. On some of the tests, he even scored lower than people with brain injuries and dementia.
Defense experts, according to prosecutors, blamed Stanford's poor performance on depression and fatigue. In a separate motion, Stanford's attorney, Ali Fazel, said his client "suffered a traumatic brain injury" in the assault and the medications given to him by prison medical staff, which included anti-anxiety drugs and antidepressants, made his condition worse.
Stanford claims to have retrograde amnesia, the loss of memory of events that happened before an injury. Memories from a few days before to even a few years before could be lost with retrograde amnesia.
Cases in which decades of memories are lost are extremely rare, and in most cases, if memory loss is that severe, a person has likely suffered a very serious brain injury.
"In this situation, generally, brain damage is so severe that this person would not be walking, talking, conversing or reasoning," said David Loewenstein, a neuropsychologist and professor of psychiatry at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine. Loewenstein did not evaluate Stanford and was referring to amnesia in general.
While he couldn't comment on whether Stanford is lying about his memory loss, Loewenstein said skilled neuropsychologists can tell the difference between someone truly experiencing amnesia and someone who is faking it.
There are numerous tests available that psychologists and psychiatrists use that assess, among other things, a person's memory, personality and language.
"These tests are very sensitive, and you can tell with a high degree of accuracy whether someone really has amnesia," he said.
Prosecutors said in addition to psychological tests that prove Stanford is faking amnesia, they also have emails, phone calls and other evidence that they say show he does remember events prior to the prison assault.
If a judge rules Stanford is mentally fit for trial, his trial will begin Jan. 23.
Federal prosecutors say R. Allen Stanford, the financier accused of defrauding investors of $7 billion, is mentally competent to stand trial and is faking amnesia, according to court documents.
A competency hearing is scheduled for Tuesday 20th December 2011 in a Texas court.
Stanford, 61, pleaded not guilty to all charges and later claimed he developed amnesia after a fellow inmate assaulted him in 2009. His defense attorney said in separate documents that the inmate smashed Stanford's face into a pole and threw him onto the concrete floor.
But in their motion to have Stanford declared competent, U.S. attorneys said doctors at the federal prison in Butner, N.C., determined that Stanford was "not credible" when he said he was "completely amnestic to his life prior to the assault." Stanford said he could not remember past romances, vacations with his children or any details about his business operations.
Additional psychological testing, the motion says, prove he was lying and faking cognitive impairments. On some of the tests, he even scored lower than people with brain injuries and dementia.
Defense experts, according to prosecutors, blamed Stanford's poor performance on depression and fatigue. In a separate motion, Stanford's attorney, Ali Fazel, said his client "suffered a traumatic brain injury" in the assault and the medications given to him by prison medical staff, which included anti-anxiety drugs and antidepressants, made his condition worse.
Stanford claims to have retrograde amnesia, the loss of memory of events that happened before an injury. Memories from a few days before to even a few years before could be lost with retrograde amnesia.
Cases in which decades of memories are lost are extremely rare, and in most cases, if memory loss is that severe, a person has likely suffered a very serious brain injury.
"In this situation, generally, brain damage is so severe that this person would not be walking, talking, conversing or reasoning," said David Loewenstein, a neuropsychologist and professor of psychiatry at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine. Loewenstein did not evaluate Stanford and was referring to amnesia in general.
While he couldn't comment on whether Stanford is lying about his memory loss, Loewenstein said skilled neuropsychologists can tell the difference between someone truly experiencing amnesia and someone who is faking it.
There are numerous tests available that psychologists and psychiatrists use that assess, among other things, a person's memory, personality and language.
"These tests are very sensitive, and you can tell with a high degree of accuracy whether someone really has amnesia," he said.
Prosecutors said in addition to psychological tests that prove Stanford is faking amnesia, they also have emails, phone calls and other evidence that they say show he does remember events prior to the prison assault.
If a judge rules Stanford is mentally fit for trial, his trial will begin Jan. 23.
Tuesday, 20 September 2011
Allen Stanford claims amnesia, and it seems contagious
Source: Loren Steffy
Chron.com
R. Allen Stanford, accused of running a $7 billion Ponzi scheme from offices in Houston and the Caribbean island of Antigua, apparently has a new defense tactic: amnesia.
Stanford has been held without bail since his arrest in 2009. He was later beaten in prison by another inmate, then became addicted to pain killers as part of his recovery. His trial has been delayed while he is weaned off the medication, but it was expected to begin in the spring.
Standford now claims he can’t remember anything prior to his 2009 arrest, according to the Wall Street Journal. It’s an awfully convenient medical condition, but it’s hardly unique in the Stanford case.
The Texas Department of Banking, for example, also seems to have some memory loss. Back in May, I wrote about how state banking regulators, who granted Stanford’s request to establish a trust company here in 2001, had entered into an unusual arrangement with Antiguan authorities that enabled them to review the books of Stanford’s bank in Antigua.
In the more than two years since Stanford’s financial empire collapsed, investigators have complained about a lack of cooperation from Antiguan authorities, especially when it comes to details of Stanford’s bank. It’s not clear, I wrote in May, if Texas authorities ever received or even requested financial information from Stanford’s Antiguan bank.
When I asked a lawyer for the banking commission about it, she confirmed the agreement but said I would need to file an open records request if I wanted to know more. So I did.
Under the state’s open records law, I was supposed to get a response in 10 days. I didn’t, so I sent another message reminding them of the deadline. Still nothing. Finally, late last week, I got an answer — four months after my initial request.
In it, a lawyer for the banking department claims it didn’t receive my request until Sept. 13, but added that “it appears from the date noted on the request that the delivery of the request was delayed.”
The information I got back doesn’t answer the fundamental question of whether the banking department ever acted on its information-sharing agreement, or what information it received. An accompanying attorney general’s opinion found that the financial information would be considered confidential under the information-sharing pact between Texas and Antigua.
Neither the AG’s opinion nor the banking department, though, has answered the more basic question: did they ever invoke the agreement?
The trust agreement was supposed to protect investors, but it appears the state’s banking regulators, after much fanfare in establishing it, never actually used it, or if they did, they missed the warning signs. Then again, maybe delivery of the information was “delayed.”
Here’s the response to my request:
FOI Response
Here’s the documents it generated, most of which discuss the creation of the trust company and the information-sharing pact with Antigua:
Stanford TAB Documents
Chron.com
R. Allen Stanford, accused of running a $7 billion Ponzi scheme from offices in Houston and the Caribbean island of Antigua, apparently has a new defense tactic: amnesia.
Stanford has been held without bail since his arrest in 2009. He was later beaten in prison by another inmate, then became addicted to pain killers as part of his recovery. His trial has been delayed while he is weaned off the medication, but it was expected to begin in the spring.
Standford now claims he can’t remember anything prior to his 2009 arrest, according to the Wall Street Journal. It’s an awfully convenient medical condition, but it’s hardly unique in the Stanford case.
The Texas Department of Banking, for example, also seems to have some memory loss. Back in May, I wrote about how state banking regulators, who granted Stanford’s request to establish a trust company here in 2001, had entered into an unusual arrangement with Antiguan authorities that enabled them to review the books of Stanford’s bank in Antigua.
In the more than two years since Stanford’s financial empire collapsed, investigators have complained about a lack of cooperation from Antiguan authorities, especially when it comes to details of Stanford’s bank. It’s not clear, I wrote in May, if Texas authorities ever received or even requested financial information from Stanford’s Antiguan bank.
When I asked a lawyer for the banking commission about it, she confirmed the agreement but said I would need to file an open records request if I wanted to know more. So I did.
Under the state’s open records law, I was supposed to get a response in 10 days. I didn’t, so I sent another message reminding them of the deadline. Still nothing. Finally, late last week, I got an answer — four months after my initial request.
In it, a lawyer for the banking department claims it didn’t receive my request until Sept. 13, but added that “it appears from the date noted on the request that the delivery of the request was delayed.”
The information I got back doesn’t answer the fundamental question of whether the banking department ever acted on its information-sharing agreement, or what information it received. An accompanying attorney general’s opinion found that the financial information would be considered confidential under the information-sharing pact between Texas and Antigua.
Neither the AG’s opinion nor the banking department, though, has answered the more basic question: did they ever invoke the agreement?
The trust agreement was supposed to protect investors, but it appears the state’s banking regulators, after much fanfare in establishing it, never actually used it, or if they did, they missed the warning signs. Then again, maybe delivery of the information was “delayed.”
Here’s the response to my request:
FOI Response
Here’s the documents it generated, most of which discuss the creation of the trust company and the information-sharing pact with Antigua:
Stanford TAB Documents