Former Texas billionaire and financier R. Allen Stanford, awaiting trial on charges he bilked investors out of $7 billion in a Ponzi scheme, was ordered by a judge to undergo detox for a drug addiction that has helped render him incompetent to stand trial. U.S. District Judge David Hittner’s ruling comes after a hearing earlier this month in which three psychiatrists testified Stanford is not competent to stand trial. They said his addiction to an anti-anxiety medication combined with a major depressive disorder and a brain injury he suffered in a September 2009 jail fight has left him unable to think clearly or help his attorneys prepare a legal defense. Hittner ordered that Stanford be sent to a hospital in the U.S. Bureau of Prisons where he can be treated for his drug addiction as well as receive additional psychiatric and neurological testing and ultimately undergo another competency exam. Hittner suggested a facility in North Carolina. Stanford’s attorney had wanted the financier to go through detox at a private medical facility in Houston and then be allowed to continue his recovery at a local apartment Stanford’s family would pay for. But prosecutors, who had suggested the financier might be faking mental illness as a way to get out of jail pending his trial, said in response that Stanford should be treated within the federal prison system. Stanford’s trial had been set to begin this week.
Today’s poll question: Do you think R. Allen Stanford is faking mental illness as a way of getting out of standing trial for his role in an alleged Ponzi scheme?
