Petters attorneys renew request to move trial

Attorneys for Wayzata businessman Tom Petters have renewed their request to move his trial out of Minnesota.

Petters is scheduled to go on trial Oct. 26 on 20 federal counts for allegedly orchestrating a $3.5 billion Ponzi scheme.

His lawyers first asked last February to move his trial to either Wisconsin or Iowa due to the extensive pretrial publicity his case has generated. A judge denied the change of venue request back in March but left open the possibility of revisiting it.

On Wednesday, Petters' attorneys filed a motion saying he can't get a fair trial in Minnesota because of what they called the "extensive, disdainful, relentless" and "scathing" publicity in the media since his arrest over a year ago.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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