Witnesses: Saba desperate for money

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - Rami Saba, as an insurance agent for two different companies, met with the man he is accused of killing at least three times in the year before Donald Dietz disappeared, according to testimony Wednesday, the first day of Saba's trial in US District Court in Grand Rapids.

At the first meeting in 2006, a year before the eccentric retired Amway employee vanished, an insurance company trainer said Deitz put his bank statements in Saba's hands during a sales call. Those statements showed he was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Federal prosecutors believe Saba, 38, tried to get his hands on that money by kidnapping and killing Dietz, who has not been seen since 2007. Dietz was 66.

Witnesses said Saba's first insurance job lasted only a month because he was fired for "going too far" in trying to sell clients products he was not trained to sell. The man he worked for said Saba "was bright" and "a little too pushy."

He then spent a year working for another company, during which time he met twice with Dietz to try to sell him an investment program but failed to do so. Saba was terminated from that company for not meeting production goals.

Other witnesses testified Saba, who holds a doctorate from a Belgian university, lost a job as a lab researcher in early 2006 before he lost the insurance jobs and was so desperate for money he borrowed thousands from a childhood friend who owns a gas station in Boston.

Saba, with a shaved head and a medium length beard, is acting as his own attorney. In his opening statement, he claimed the prosecutors will try to mislead the jury and that their circumstantial case does not directly tie him to Dietz's disappearance.

US Attorney Don Davis told jurors that his case focuses on bank and phone records that show Saba and Raogo Ouedraogo, who has already been convicted, planned an elaborate scheme to kill Dietz and steal his life savings.

Saba invoked "Allah" more than a dozen times, which the prosecution raised as a potential problem in previous hearings and in court Wednesday. Judge Janet Neff warned him at one point not to make the trial about religion.

A jury of 14 - 12 plus two alternates - was seated Tuesday.

The trial could last up to five weeks. It resumes Thursday at 8:30 a.m. in the courtroom of Judge Neff in the US District Court building in downtown Grand Rapids.

24 Hour News 8's Ryan Takeo contributed to this report.