TEXAS, USA — A forensic psychologist testified yesterday that jailed Texas financier R Allen Stanford is mentally stable and competent to be tried next month on charges he bilked investors out of US$7 billion ($600 billion) in a massive Ponzi scheme

Stanford had been declared incompetent in January due to an addiction to an anti-anxiety drug he developed while jailed in Houston. He spent more than eight months being treated at a federal prison hospital in Butner, North Carolina.

Robert Cochrane, who helped treat Stanford at the hospital, said the financier is off the drug that was affecting his mental state and can now think clearly and assist his attorneys in his defense.

Cochrane told US District Judge David Hittner that while Stanford was being treated at the hospital, the financier reported “feeling great, was very energetic … was laughing a lot.”

Stanford’s attorneys contend the financier is still not competent to stand trial on Jan. 23 because a brain injury he suffered in a September 2009 jail fight as well as the various medications he was given while jailed in Houston have made his condition worse.

Several medical experts who plan to testify for Stanford at the hearing, which could last up to three days, say the financier suffers from a variety of mental conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder from his jail fight, a major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder.

Stanford is also claiming head injuries he suffered in the jail fight gave him retrograde amnesia, leaving him with complete memory loss of all events in his life prior to that assault, including details about his business operations.