Legal News

When It Rains . . . Ills Continue to Mount for Allen Stanford

By Ashby Jones

Who knows? Maybe R. Allen Stanford, the man charged with running a $7 billion Ponzi scheme, will, at the end of the day, come away smelling like a rose. He’ll win at his criminal trial — slated to begin next January — and manage to beat back the SEC’s charges as well.

But to this point, the news on Stanford, currently being detained pending his trial, has been mostly not-so-good for the Houston financier. A revolving door of lawyers. More lawsuits. Tales of physical altercations. It seems to be never-ending.

And that brings us to today’s double-dip of news on Stanford. For starters, Stanford has asked, yet again, for a change in lawyers. This time, he’d like to dump Kent Schaffer of Houston’s Bires & Schaffer and replace him with Michael Essmyer of Houston’s Essmyer, Tritico & Rainey as lead counsel. He also wants to substitute Houston’s Bob Bennett for another lawyer, Mac Secrest. Click here for the story, from the Texas Lawyer’s Tex Parte blog.

Why the switch? "The client simply wanted a change of counsel," Essmyer told the Texas Lawyer, though Essmyer declined to say why. Essmyer said he has no intention of asking for a delay in the trial, but he notes that it is "highly likely" that Stanford will ask for a change of venue for the trial.

But wait, there’s more. Earlier this week, Stanford was sued by a unit of American Express for $115,712.79 in back credit card debt. Click here for the Bloomberg story.

"Defendant benefited from all of the charges made to the Centurion Card account, has acknowledged receipt of those benefits, and has failed to pay for same," Donald D. DeGrasse, American Express's lawyer, said in papers filed in Texas state court in Houston yesterday.

Kent Schaffer, Stanford’s lawyer for the moment, declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on April 01, 2010 (boomark / email).