Posted on 05/26/2006 6:20:48 AM PDT by Dog Gone
The elimination of notoriously comfortable "Club Fed" lockups, along with a recent trend of handing out hard time to Enron-related convicts, could mean Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling will share prison space with drug dealers, child pornographers and gang members.
White-collar criminals used to be able to count on assignment to minimum-security prisons, known as "Club Feds" because of their cushy conditions — dorm-style living, fewer guards and restrictions — particularly compared with traditional units.
But the U.S. Bureau of Prisons has closed four of those facilities recently, and government rules require nonviolent inmates with long sentences to be upgraded to more severe security levels designated as "low" or "medium."
Experts predict Skilling and Lay are likely to receive sentences of between 12 and 25 years. And any punishment of more than 10 years practically guarantees a more secure prison, because sentence length is a major factor in placement, said Alan Ellis, past president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and a specialist in sentencing and placement of white-collar offenders.
Common inhabitants of such units are drug felons, scam artists, child pornographers and even people with violent pasts who have shown good behavior in more secure units.
Sentences of 25 years or more likely will mean a step up to medium security, Ellis said.
"Now you're having carjackers, bank robbers, people with assaultive histories and people doing life who kept their nose clean and were moved down," Ellis said.
"Nobody stays either place longer than they're invited," Gerger said.
U.S. District Judge Sim Lake, who sentenced Olis, was the trial judge for Lay and Skilling. He is scheduled to hand down punishment in September.
The only people convicted in Enron-related trials before Thursday, stemming from a Nigerian barge deal with Merrill Lynch, all were sent to low-security prisons despite clean backgrounds and sentences of less than four years each.
Former Enron Treasurer Ben Glisan Jr., who pleaded guilty to conspiracy, began serving his five-year stretch in a low-security unit before being shipped down to a minimum-security camp once he began cooperating with prosecutors. Federal judges can recommend destinations, but the prison system ultimately decides.
Bureau officials say they try to place prisoners within 500 miles of home and in the lowest level of security for which they qualify, but their rules allow an inmate to be upgraded to the next level without cause.
However, attorneys said that such bail is rare in Houston federal courts, and that for it to be granted Lake must decide the two men are not flight risks and have a "substantial likelihood" of getting their convictions or sentences overturned.
As for prison — where California Attorney General Bill Lockyer once said he'd like to see Lay share a cell "with a tattooed dude who says, 'Hi, my name is Spike, honey' " — Houston defense lawyer Kent Schaffer says the federal system tends to be safer than state lockups.
"The Bureau of Prisons is going to want to make sure Ken Lay is not assaulted in prison," Schaffer said. "If somebody of that stature is assaulted in any way, that's going to be really bad PR for the United States government."
Kenny-boy will be able to buy all the protection and creature comforts he needs, no sweat.
I think you're confusing federal prison with those in South America.
Kenny is going to Federal "Pound Me In The A$$" Prison.
I've never found prison rape jokes to be funny. And to have the California AG imply as much is simply despicable.
Bill Lockyer is a cad. I haven't heard his take on these convictions yet, but it should be noted that they had nothing to do with Enron's activities in California during its power crisis.
Totally concur. Prisoners should face society's revenge, and should not be sport for their fellow sociopaths who happen to be higher on the pecking order.
IMHO, prison rape should be punishable by death.
Most of Lay's assets have either been surrendered or frozen, he even had to petition for funds to pay his lawyers.
Lay and Skilling will actually have a lot less wealth than most lesser known white collar criminals and they will be serving much longer sentences.
The man is scum and should go to prison. They should take his money and pay back the people who he scammed and hurt.
I agree with you whole heartedly. The man should be made to take his words back in a very public way!
Prison assaults of any kind are proof of how little control correction authorities (or "guards", as G. Gordon Liddy is wont to call them) actually have over their facilities. Lay and Skilling are, in effect, facing a death sentence for a non-violent crime with fewer evidentiary "smoking guns" than in the O.J. Simpson case. I don't necessarily disagree with the verdict, but I also don't think that either one of these guys deserves any "extra" punishments beyond what has already been accorded.
As Liddy says "what are they correcting?" The lack of control at most prisons is truly disturbing.
Skilling is 52 years old, so he has a good chance of outliving his prison sentence. The judge could sentence him up to 185 years in prison or some ridiculous amount, but I'm sure it will be less than 30 years.
Even so, the punishment to these men will be harsh. Federal sentences do not come with a parole option. Good behavior can shave only a few months off the full sentence.
Perhaps the best thing to come out of this is that corporate executives everywhere are on notice that bending the rules and being less than transparent can bring a huge penalty.
Skilling and Lay are ruined. Lay, in particular, had better seek to enjoy the time between now and September 11 because it's probably the last time he'll have any freedom for the rest of his life.
The defense would have loved for you to be on the jury.
Lay has never shown remorse or admitted any wrongdoing; didn't even have the baseballs to own up to any of it. Hasn't said he's sorry, hasn't asked for forgiveness of the employees, shareholders or public, and remains "defiant," as a consulting judge said.
Skilling is easy to hate, but he has at least acted like he's sorry. OTOH, they got their 9-11 sentencing date because of his arrogrance to the judge, using 9-11-01 as his "excuse" for one of his insider trading allegations. Ha, the pros pointed out that particular set of stock transactions took place the week *before* the WorldTradeCenter/Pentagon/United Flight attacks.
In Houston the talk is Kenny Boy will be pardon by Bush since Clinton pardon Rich. I find this hard to believe.
It's impossible to believe. Bush has always allowed those who self-destruct to face the consequences. Ask Linda Chavez.
That was my response and the come back was....Clinton pardon Rich. I immediately said... Bush ain't no Clinton.
I totally agree -- especially when the jokes come from people in power.
With as much money as Lay has squirreled away, he'd be a fool not to go on the lam.
Think about it . . . Lay is what, in his sixties? He gets a 10-year prison sentence, he'll die before he gets out.
And with several million dollars, he could live very nicely elsewhere for quite some time.
"Kenny-boy will be able to buy all the protection and creature comforts he needs, no sweat."
"I think you're confusing federal prison with those in South America."
Or Baltimore, MD.
I don't think he has millions, and I can't picture him swimming the Rio Grande to sneak into Mexico.
I think he and Dan Morales will be sharing a bar of soap in Texarkana federal prison.
I agree wholeheartedly. Lockyer is an arrogant b@stard, and he should know better than to make a public statement like that.
As I said, I didn't necessarily disagree with the verdict. Some of the jurors who rendered the verdict (apparently) told the media that there was "no smoking gun" in the evidence that would have made conviction a snap. I would like to see their stated belief that there were so many indicators of what the admitted perp was up to that Lay and Skilling "had to know" as a victory for the discarded "reasonable man" (now "reasonable person") principle (and I might have come down on that side, had I been a juror), but I suspect from the post trial comments that it more of a revenge verdict: "too many people have suffered, more than just the CFO have to go down for this". It seems at least plausible to me that Lay may have been more of a concept guy (as opposed to a competent CEO) who actually wanted his business to succeed, and as such was convicted for mismanagement, rather than for fraud. In short, I would have kept a more open mind than most of the jurors who spoke to the media.
Amen to that!!!
Ken Lay was home free when he retired the first time. His mistake was coming back in the fold when Skilling took over the reigns. Lay was in complete denial and took the easy route.
One thing I have noticed, is that people like Martha Stewart and Ken Lay (business) get hammered, while people like Michael Jackson, Robert Blake and O. J. (celeb entertainment) tend to walk. Of course, going to trial in California and Texas are two totally different things.
I was friends with a guy that was in federal prison in Texas, and if I had to do time, just in terms of living conditions, I think you meet a much better class of criminals in federal prison. He told me that at the Bastrop federal facility, where he spent seven years, the inmates were tightly controlled, and there was very little violence or assault. The facility was clean, the inmates were quiet and respectful when I visited him there. I was at a minimum security state prison (no violent offenders) and it was also clean and relatively safe.
The biggest thing about both of these facilities was the lack of any personal space and the lack of mobility. Dorm facilities, six toilets lined up on a wall. want to take a dump? You're looking at guys sitting in the living area and at the beds on the other side of the room.
County jails were the worst I saw (in the US). They were overcrowded, and inmates could have easily killed each other before guards intervened.
He's been known to pardon guys who conmmitted bank fraud.
I am aware of one, a guy who already finished his full sentence in the early 1990s. That guy already faced the consequences.
Perhaps you know of others, especially those who received a pardon while they were either in jail or awaiting sentencing.
Please give us the details.
Jamie Olis got screwed...
He is a good man.
Pardons wipe out restitution orders. Are you saying he re-paid all of his restitution? (I'm not going to post his name here, since if we are talking about the same guy, he's dead now, and his family has had enough publicity).
I have no idea whether he made full restitution. The guy I'm referring to was sentenced to three years in prison back in 1991. He was pardoned last month.
If he didn't make restitution in the past 15 years, and especially if he's dead, the issue is pretty much moot.
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