Charter founder's fraud trial delayed by competency test

A federal judge has delayed the start of the fraud retrial of charter school founder Dorothy June Brown and ordered another competency exam for the veteran educator.

U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick directed the court's pretrial services office Wednesday to arrange for Pogos H. Voskanian, a forensic psychiatrist, to reexamine Brown, 78, to determine whether she is competent to stand trial on charges she defrauded the charters she founded of $6.3 million.

Brown's defense attorneys last week filed new medical information with the court that stated that physicians at the Cleveland Clinic examined Brown recently and concluded she has Alzheimer's-like dementia.

Voskanian was one of the court-appointed experts who examined Brown last summer and concluded she was competent to stand trial.

During a three-day hearing in January, Surrick heard from dueling defense and government experts.

In a ruling in April, the judge said that while defense and government experts agreed that Brown had some memory loss, they disagreed on its cause and scope. He found that Brown was competent and able to assist with the defense in her retrial.

Jury selection had been scheduled to begin June 29 with a trial set for July 7.

According to documents filed with the court, Brown's husband took her to the Cleveland Clinic's Louis Ruvo Center for Brain Health Neurological Institute 11 days after the judge's April ruling because he was concerned about Brown's "deteriorating mental condition."

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