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There are slow-moving criminal cases, and then there is the matter of the coupon fraud case that has languished in federal court in Milwaukee for what is approaching a decade.

In March 2007, a grand jury indicted the nation's biggest coupon processor and nearly a dozen people, including company executives, alleging they stole $250 million over 10 years, using "chop crews" to cut out coupons and put them in cement mixers to make them look worn and submitting them for reimbursement.

Since the indictment was handed down, two judges on the case have moved into semiretirement, a U.S. attorney has come and gone, a two-term president has nearly run his course, one of the lawyers has died and the case has gone to the appeals court, twice.

After nearly nine years, the three-week trial is set to go next month, with more than three dozen witnesses expected to testify and literally a warehouse full of evidence for the jury to consider.

The two remaining defendants, Thomas Balsiger and James Currey, appeared in court Tuesday for a final pretrial conference. Earlier defendants reached plea agreements.

Balsiger, of El Paso, Texas, and the former CEO of International Outsourcing Services, is representing himself, though the court has provided a lawyer to help as needed. Balsiger's attorney died in 2014 and he chose to proceed on his own behalf, though he is not a lawyer.

Balsiger has argued investigators don't understand the coupon business and alleged prosecutor misconduct. On Tuesday, he said his former co-defendants will get breaks on prison time to bend the truth to convict him.

"We know they are going to be paid for performance, and that disturbs me," he said.

Prosecutors have countered it is a clear case of fraud. A key piece of evidence appears to be a memo from December 2005 in which Balsiger is alleged to have admitted coupons were being diverted. U.S. District Judge Charles Clevert earlier ruled the memo was admissible.

The case, alleged to be the biggest fraud in the history of the multibillion-dollar industry, promises to provide a look into the obscure world of coupon processing.

According to court documents, executives from International Outsourcing systematically defrauded manufacturers and retail stores across the country of at least a quarter-billion dollars, cashing coupons they knew were not used by customers.

After the coupons were cut out, some were put through a cement mixer in Mexico to make them look realistically worn and used. Manufacturers, including five in Wisconsin, paid out millions for coupons that never touched a shopper's hand, according to the indictment.

International Outsourcing handled millions of coupons every year, taking them from the stores, sending them to the manufacturers for redemption and returning the money to the stores, collecting a fee for the service.

One of the allegations is that agents for the company bribed small stores in exchange for letting International Outsourcing submit large volumes of fraudulent coupons under their names. The company bundled those coupons from smaller stores in with larger chains to avoid scrutiny, according to court documents.

Defense attorneys said the company mixed coupons from small and large retailers for convenience, not fraud.

The case started in Milwaukee in 2001 when the FBI here began investigating a large coupon-redemption check sent to a small store that didn't even accept coupons.

The government has rented a warehouse near the airport for years to house numerous pallets of coupons and other evidence in the case. Balsiger said he wants the jury to see the volume of coupons that were handled by his company. Clevert said he may have the jury travel to the warehouse to view the evidence during the trial.