Posted on 10/13/2009 10:29:15 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court said Tuesday it will take up former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling's appeal of his convictions for his role in the collapse of the energy giant, accepting another high-profile challenge to a favorite tool of prosecutors in white-collar and public corruption cases.
Skilling's appeal stems from his convictions in 2006 on 19 counts of conspiracy, securities fraud, insider trading and lying to auditors involving the 2001 collapse of Enron.
The justices already are entertaining similar claims from former newspaper magnate Conrad Black and a former Alaska lawmaker ensnared in a public corruption scandal.
At issue in all three cases is prosecutors' use of the federal "honest services" fraud statute, a 28-word law that critics call vague and unfair. Among the federal charges against former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is an "honest services" count, while his predecessor, former Gov. George Ryan was convicted of it.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Double the sentence.
SCOTUS refuses to look at eligibility cases but they will hear Skilling’s case. Actually - Rahm and Gorelnick plus Raines and others frauds at Fannie and Freddie were far far worse than Enron. Also the Sandler’s at World Savings.
We have no government, only a circus and the freaks are running the show.
I read an account of the case: “Conspiracy of Fools” by Kurt Eichenwald.
It wasn’t Skilling or Lay, but Andy Fastow, operating more or less autonomously, who set up the shell accounts and hid the losses. That’s my recollection.
Skilling and Lay were pretty lame in all of this, but Fastow acted like a sociopath.
He turned state’s witness and got off with 10 years or so. He’s probably out by now.
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