The accusation comes in a court filing ahead of a hearing next week to determine if Allen Stanford is competent to stand trial.
"Convincing, reliable evidence demonstrates that Stanford is faking memory loss," prosecutors say in the 20-page filing.
Stanford's attorneys say he has lost all memory of events preceding his assault in a federal detention facility in September, 2009. Following the assault, while still in federal custody, Stanford became addicted to prescription drugs.
Stanford was indicted in June of that year for allegedly running a $7 billion Ponzi scheme. In January of this year, a judge ruled him incompetent to stand trial and ordered him to undergo drug treatment and evaluation at the Bureau of Prisons medical center in Butner, NC.
That treatment ended last month, and doctors at the medical center declared Stanford competent. But doctors hired by the defense have claimed — and apparently continue to claim — that Stanford has "no independent recollection of personal life events or business dealings that predated the head trauma he sustained in the September 2009," according to the filing.
Stanford even indicated to prison doctors "feeling bad after being informed by his family that he was known as a 'womanizer'," according to the filing.
Stanford, 61, has been separated from his wife for years, and has fathered multiple children with mistresses he referred to as his "outside wives.
Based on its extensive analysis, (the prison hospital) concluded that Stanford ‘does not suffer from a mental illness which would interfere with his ability to understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against him or to assist properly in his defense,’” prosecutors wrote in court documents filed Thursday.
In his own court filing, Ali Fazel, one of Stanford’s attorneys, said the brain injury the financier suffered in a September 2009 jail fight as well as the various medications he was given while jailed in Houston “exacerbated the accused’s medical condition.”
Stanford “does not have the present mental capacity to effectively assist his attorneys in preparing his defense,” Fazel wrote.
A gag order is preventing attorneys from discussing the case outside of court filings.
Stanford is also apparently claiming a new illness: retrograde amnesia. The financier says the injuries he suffered in the jail fight have left him with complete memory loss of all events in his life prior to that assault.
FMC Butner concluded that Stanford's complaints of memory loss were 'not credible' based on the fact that he had 'no difficulty spontaneously recalling personal and business information" during the period after his September 2009 assault and before he got to Butner, Costa said in the filing.
Prison staffers, who monitored Stanford's inmate e-mail and phone conversations, said he appeared to have no trouble discussing certain current events and personal experiences with family members while still incarcerated in Houston following the attack, Costa said in the filing. Stanford also represented himself in May 2010 at a Houston court hearing, where he "spoke cogently and with significant recall of events in arguing his case," Costa said.
Robert Bennett and Kent Schaffer, both former Stanford attorneys, "also confirmed that, following the assault, Stanford did not have any difficulty recalling information that predated the assault," according to the filing.
In addition to more than 16 different neuropsychological tests administered by prison and outside doctors, Stanford underwent a magnetic brain scan in March that showed "no evidence of damage to any part of Stanford's brain that processes memory," Costa said. "Specifically, the neurologist found that Stanford's reported memory deficits were 'grossly out of proportion to expected memory loss' from a head trauma," Costa said.
Stanford's defense team has tried "to excuse Stanford's suspiciously low performance on the tests on the ground that he was depressed and sleep deprived," Costa said in the filing. He said the doctors who evaluated Stanford for his defense offered no explanation "as to why, even assuming depression and fatigue, Stanford's performance would be worse than subjects with advanced dementia or mental retardation."
If Hittner determines Stanford is mentally fit, his trial will begin Jan. 23.
The case is U.S. v. Stanford, 09-cr-342, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas Houston.
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