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Defense lawyers made a case for Allen Stanford's innocence on Friday in a courtroom filled with people who claim he stole millions of dollars of their savings.
Some two dozen investors were at the federal courthouse in Houston to mark the third anniversary of the government closure of Stanford Financial Group in February 2009.
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During a break in the testimony, Angela Shaw, founder of the Stanford Victims Coalition, said that three years without restitution had made a mockery of those people.
The trial -- where the former Texas financier stands accused of orchestrating a $7 billion Ponzi scheme -- got under way on Jan. 23. Prosecutors contend that Stanford stole money deposited at Stanford International Bank in Antigua and spent it on girlfriends, mansions, private jets, and yachts.
Stanford, 61, has pleaded not guilty to 14 counts, and his defense lawyers have argued that he was not responsible for any fraud because he left day-to-day business decisions to underlings.
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Defense attorneys have said they will show that Stanford's former top deputy James Davis, not Stanford himself, had oversight of funds invested in the Stanford International Bank. Davis has pleaded guilty to fraud and testified against Stanford.
On Friday, former Stanford aide Linda Wingfield testified that Davis had fought her efforts to enforce policies to control company expenses. "He would ignore the policies," she said.
Testifying by video from Orlando, Fla., because she was unable to travel to Houston, Wingfield said she had expressed concern at the time that Davis had sole responsibility for certain internal audits of operations at Stanford International Bank.
Under cross-examination by the government, Wingfield said that when she emailed Stanford expressing concerns about Davis, Stanford said she should not have put them into writing.
Davis was a star witness during the prosecution, which rested its case on Wednesday. He testified that he and Stanford "cooked the books" of Stanford's bank and regularly withdrew millions of dollars from a secret Swiss bank account that was funded with investor money.
But, under cross-examination by Stanford lawyer Robert Scardino, Davis admitted that he was a liar and a serial adulterer and that he had committed fraud.
The government also showed jurors numerous emails to and from Stanford authorizing transfers of money from a secret Swiss account. Former employees also testified that Stanford made all big decisions.
Legal experts said that through the weight of its evidence, the government had set a high bar for Stanford's defense team.
"The defense has done a very good job of beating up Davis," said Wendell Odom, a criminal-defense attorney based in Houston who has been monitoring the trial. But "it's going to be difficult to prove that Stanford did not know what was going on," he said.
