Eighty potential jurors are expected in the Houston, Texas, federal courthouse Monday to begin the trial of disgraced financier R. Allen Stanford.

Stanford, 61, the flamboyant leader of Stanford Financial Group and its worldwide affiliates, is expected to take the stand during the weeks-long proceedings.

Wednesday, Senior U.S. District Judge David Hittner gave each side 65 hours to present their cases, media reports say.

The judge also rejected another defense motion to delay the trial while its documents manager undergoes surgery.

Stanford was indicted on 21 counts related to the 2009 crash of his financial empire, but last June prosecutors altered their allegations to focus on 14 counts from wire and mail fraud to conspiracies to obstruct a federal investigation and to commit money laundering.

His attorneys insist their client still is not competent to stand trial. Stanford spent months in a federal hospital facility being weaned off addictive medications prescribed for him after a jailhouse fight.

Some 30,000 investors worldwide lost $7.2 billion from uninsured certificates of deposit sold through Stanford International Bank Ltd., based in Antigua.

Hundreds of Mississippi investors lost life savings through SFG business offices in Tupelo, Jackson and Memphis, Tenn.

The government contends clients were told the CD funds were invested conservatively, when in fact they were used for speculative ventures and to fund Stanford’s lavish lifestyle in the Caribbean and Florida.

A key government witness will be James M. Davis, Stanford’s former right-hand man, who once invested heavily in downtown Baldwyn and built a four-story home in Union County.

In August 2009, Davis pleaded guilty to his crimes associated with the alleged Ponzi scheme.

On Wednesday, Stanford lawyer Ali Fazel told the judge that what Stanford officials “said they did with the money is what they did,” the Houston Chronicle reported.

He also claimed that CD investors received payments on schedule until SFG was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2009 and another federal judge ordered the Houston-based company into receivership.

The trial is expected to last six to eight weeks.

A June 11 trial start is set for other Stanford officials, including Baldwyn native Laura Pendergest-Holt, and a former Antiguan bank regulator.

patsy.brumfield@journalinc.com