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Jury selection is set to begin this Thursday in the trial of two Stanford Financial Group executives for their roles in the $7 billion R. Allen Stanford Ponzi scheme.

Former chief accounting officer Gilberto Lopez and ex-global controller Mark Kuhrt are alleged to have supported the scheme by falsifying accounting statements, in order to encourage the sale of certificates of deposit in Stanford International Bank. They're also charged with bribing financial regulators in Antigua, where the bank was based, in order to conceal the scheme from US regulators.

Geoffrey Corn, a professor at South Texas College of Law, says the prosecution may call former Stanford chief investment officer Laura Pendergest-Holt as a witness.

"The people involved in this — they all had dirt on their hands, and this is what prosecutors do. They educate jurors that, if you're going to get into the weeds of criminal misconduct, the people you're dealing with are going to be unsavory."

Pendergest-Holt pled guilty for her role in the fraud in September and was sentenced to three years in prison.

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