Stanford seeks new trial based on publicity, prep time

A lack of sufficient preparation time, excessive pre-trial publicity, and even Twitter all contributed to an unfair guilty verdict against R. Allen Stanford, his attorneys claim in their request for a new trial, filed this week, as reported by The Houston Chronicle. “The Houston community was saturated with publicity prejudicial to Stanford,” defense attorney Ali Fazel wrote in his 71-page request to U.S. District Judge David Hittner, the trial judge in the fraud case. Stanford, who turns 62 on Saturday, was convicted March 6 on 13 of 14 counts that accused him of orchestrating a $7 billion investment fraud through his bank in the Caribbean island nation of Antigua. Sentencing is set for June 14, and Stanford could spend the rest of his life in prison. The new motion alleges that defense lawyers did not have adequate time to prepare for the trial after Stanford returned from nine months in a North Carolina prison hospital, where he was treated for addiction to medications prescribed when he was injured in a jailhouse fight. The defense motion also zeroes in on publicity during the trial—particularly Hittner’s permission for news media to report from the courtroom live on Twitter—as grounds for granting their client a second chance with a jury. Read the full story here; and a Daily Report story from Monday on a local suit against Stanford on behalf of Baton Rouge area victims here.