HOUS­TON-A for­mer em­ploy­ee for Texas fi­nancier R. Allen Stan­ford tells ju­rors the ty­coon spent mil­lions of dol­lars to de­vel­op prop­er­ty and busi­ness­es on the Caribbean is­land na­tion of An­tigua. Arnold Knoche, who worked in Stan­ford's re­al es­tate de­vel­op­ment com­pa­ny, tes­ti­fied yes­ter­day at the fi­nancier's fraud tri­al in Hous­ton. Knoche said he be­came con­cerned about where the mon­ey for these con­struc­tion projects came from. He said Stan­ford spent mon­ey on such things as re­mov­ing hard­wood floors from his bank build­ing be­cause he thought they were not the right shade.

Pros­e­cu­tors al­lege Stan­ford used mon­ey from de­pos­i­tors who bought cer­tifi­cates of de­posit from his bank in An­tigua to pay for such projects and for his bil­lion­aire lifestyle. Stan­ford's at­tor­neys con­tend he was a savvy busi­ness­man whose fi­nan­cial em­pire was le­git­i­mate.

AP