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Embattled retired Marine Sergeant Terry Stewart's federal sentencing trial has been continued until late April. Stewart asked for the continuation after all of his pre-sentinel trial motions were denied and it looked as if prosecutors would ask that Stewart be sentenced to life in prison.

Stewart entered the courtroom Monday afternoon, March 24 in an orange prison jump suit and wearing leg cuffs.

After being seated, Judge Lacy Thornburg asked Stewart if he was ready to proceed. Stewart indicated that he was if he was to be sentenced according to the law.

As the sentencing trial was about to get started, Jeni Stewart said she and Terry realized that they were about to get "blind-sided" and Terry asked for a continuance.

US Assistant District Attorney Anne Tompkins did not object and the sentence trial will probably be rescheduled for late April.

"Terry just could not take being blind-sided again," said Jeni. Jeni does not plan to leave Asheville until she secures a lawyer for Terry. Friends of the case are trying to help her do just that, and members of the Marine Corp. are said to be sitting up a legal defense fund for Terry.

About 15 to 20 people that knew or read about Stewart's case were in the court room Monday, some from as far way as Greer, South Carolina and Salisbury, North Carolina.

Stewart was convicted in a case involving Banyon International, a company that was operated by Phillip Mark Vaughan who said the company specialized in investing for trusts. The government said that the business was nothing more than a "ponsa" scheme.

The government also said that Stewart was a part of the scheme, but Stewart has maintained that he was never a part of Banyon. However, without the help of a lawyer and due to what the Stewarts say is a suppression of evidence and testimony, Stewart was convicted in 2001. Terry has been in jail since then without being sentenced, when the Tribune  ran a series of articles. 

Meanwhile, two other defendants in the case, who plea-bargained with the federal prosecutors, Phil Greer and Howard Prince were sentenced in the Banyon case.

Greer was given 10 years imprisonment along with fines and an order to pay restitution to Banyon investors. Prince was given 20 months imprisonment and also order to pay fines and restitution. Both were also ordered to file annual income tax returns.

Prince, who had cooperated with the government since the beginning of the investigation, tried to get his sentence reduced even further.

His lawyer had Prince take the stand and tell of other family members that lost money in Banyon including his father (lost $200,000), father-in-law (lost more than $200,000), an uncle (lost $100,000) and a brother-in-law (lost more than $500,000). Prince also testified that he, himself, had lost $55,000 himself.

He also testified that he'd taken out a $96,000 mortgage on his family house to help pay the money back to Banyon investors who had lost money. Prince's lawyer also said that his client was working three jobs trying to support his family and repay the money.

He pleaded with Thornburg to reduce the sentence so that Prince could maintain his family and still receive jail time and the other fines and restitution orders.

Prince's lawyer's argument fell on deaf ears, as Thornburg gave government prosecutors the 20 months they asked for in Prince's case.

One of the lawyers told the Tribune that "Stewart had the least involvement of all the co-defendants in the Banyon case. Yet, according to Jeni, the prosecutors plan to ask for a life sentence for Stewart.

"They [federal prosecutors] have to punish me," said Stewart in a phone-interview from McDowell County Prison, "They're out for revenge."

Asked what he planned to do with the additional time he'd received from Thornburg, Stewart said, "I flat out don't know, I'm at a lost."

Meanwhile, another source at the federal courthouse told the Tribune that Prince could have walked out of the courthouse with no jail time if he'd just given testimony that implicated Stewart in the Banyon case, but he refused to tell anything that was not true."

This report was filed by Clint Parker of the Tribune.