Houston lawyers Kent Schaffer and George McCall “Mac” Secrest Jr. may be on their way out as criminal-defense lawyers for Houston financier R. Allen Stanford, but at least they got paid. Schaffer won’t say exactly how much he and Secrest received on March 30 from insurance companies under Stanford Financial Group’s directors’ and officers’ policies, but he says the payment covered their legal expenses, which exceeded a total of $200,000, and paid their fees for the six months they have worked on Stanford’s criminal defense. “We were paid in full,” Schaffer says. “It was a respectable amount.” Schaffer says it was a coincidence that the payment on March 30 occurred the same day Stanford filed a motion asking U.S. District Judge David Hittner of the Southern District of Texas to substitute Michael Essmyer, a partner in Houston’s Essmyer, Tritico & Rainey, as lead attorney for Stanford, replacing Schaffer, and to substitute Bob Bennett, of Houston’s Bennett Nguyen Joint Venture, for Secrest. Hittner set a hearing on Stanford’s motion for April 6. In a March 30 order setting the hearing, Hittner wrote that any substitution of counsel would be “unconditional” and would not be grounds for a continuance. United States v. Robert Allen Stanford, et al. is set for trial in January 2011. Schaffer declines to say why Stanford wants new attorneys, but he notes that he and Secrest have had some disagreements with Stanford over pre-trial and trial strategy. “There were things that he wanted us to do . . . that we felt we should not for a number of reasons,” Schaffer says. “At the end of the day, when you hire me or you hire Mac Secrest or any others, you have to depend on our expertise.” Stanford, who is in federal custody, has pleaded not guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges related to an alleged conspiracy to defraud investors who bought about $7 billion in certificates of deposit sold through Stanford International Bank Ltd.
-- Brenda Sapino Jeffreys
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