Stanford competency hearing to begin today

Attorneys for R. Allen Stanford are expected to call at least 10 witnesses to testify at a federal court hearing starting today to determine whether the accused Ponzi schemer is competent to stand trial, the Houston Chronicle reports. Stanford, 61, was returned to Houston in November after nine months of treatment in Butner, N.C., for addiction to medication he was prescribed while in custody in the Houston area. Specialists in Butner deemed him competent for trial. Experts who examined him after his return are among the witnesses Stanford’s court-appointed attorney listed in court filings. They are Richard Pollock, a neuropsychologist; Ralph Lilly, a neurologist; Victor Scarano, a forensic psychiatrist; and David Axelrad, a psychiatric neurologist. Also on the witness list are three attorneys, including former Stanford lawyer Dick DeGuerin, and Stanford’s 81-year-old mother. Stanford claims to have no memory of events prior to his injury in a jailhouse altercation in September 2009, and his lawyers said in a filing last week he is unable to assist in his defense. He developed addictions to medicine prescribed after the injury, according to testimony at a hearing last year. Prosecutors, who allege he is faking amnesia, are expected to call Robert Cochrane, a forensic psychologist from North Carolina who was Stanford’s lead evaluator in Butner. U.S. District Judge David Hittner has sealed much of the case record and issued a gag order that bars attorneys from discussing anything not in the public record. If found competent, Stanford could be on trial as early as January. Read the full story here.