Wayzata businessman Tom Petters faces up to life in prison if convicted of running a $3.65 billion Ponzi scheme as the government alleges. The trial could last six weeks.
Petters' defense team says his associates devised the fraud without his knowledge and then turned on him in an effort to save themselves.
10/28: The judge seated a jury of 10 women and six men, four of whom will serve as alternates. Both sides presented opening statements.
10/29: The first witnesses in the case, two General Electric Capital employees in Chicago and a couple of Costco employees, began to lay the groundwork for the prosecution's allegation that Petters' frauds go back a decade or more, and that he directed the alleged Ponzi scheme.
Coming today: Deanna Coleman, the longtime Petters executive and confidante who took her story about fraud to federal authorities 13 months ago, will take the witness stand. Coleman's testimony likely will spill over into next week.
