Legal News

Allen Stanford, Now Thinner and Hairier, To Stand Trial in 2011

By Ashby Jones

One problem — or annoyance — with writing about white-collar crime is that if you don’t get a plea bargain, the cases can take for-friggin’-ever, from start to finish. We felt that way with the Enron defendants, and we’re feeling that way now with accused Ponzi schemer Allen Stanford.

Word today is that we’re going to have to wait for more than another whole year before opening statements in the Stanford case. The judge in the case on Thursday set the trial date in the case for January of 2011. According to the Reuters story, prosecutors had asked for an earlier start; defense lawyers wanted to push it back to mid-2011.

In any event, January, 2011? Isn’t there something in the books somewhere called the Speedy Trial Act?

Indeed, there is, and it’s located at 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3161 et seq. Under the law, a defendant’s trial shall start 70 days after the date a criminal information or indictment is filed. Thing is, said one white-collar defense lawyer we spoke to, the clock stops for a host of reasons, including the filing of a substantive motion by the defense. “In any complicated white-collar case, it takes a year or year-and-a-half from indictment to trial date,” said the lawyer. “And it makes sense. In a lot of these cases, you’ve got millions and millions of documents. Nobody’s in a hurry to try a case like this, typically.”

Of course, if Stanford is ultimately convicted, he’ll get credit for time served pre-conviction. (Though if he’s acquitted, of course, there’s no getting the time back.)

In other Stanford news, Dallas federal judge David Godbey on Wednesday found Stanford and his attorneys in contempt of a court order over their attempts to collect insurance policy proceeds to pay defense costs. No sanctions were imposed, according to the judge’s order. Click here for that story, also from Reuters.

All in all, it’s been a rough year for Allen Stanford. At least from the video we saw earlier (from which the above picture was snipped), his demeanor and appearance have changed. Gone are the smiles and the while-still-manacled thumbs ups that he was giving shortly after he was arrested. Gone too are those jowls that said “healthy” and “well-fed.” Now he just looks like a lean and despondent version of the “Interesting Man” from the Dos Equis commercials (pictured, right).

Top Photo: Reuters

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on December 17, 2009 (boomark / email).