Posted on 02/27/2010 3:05:35 PM PST by NormsRevenge
HOUSTON (Reuters) Former Enron chief executive Jeff Skilling lost the first half of the fight of his life when a jury convicted him nearly four years ago for committing fraud while at the helm of the once high-flying energy trader.
On Monday before the U.S. Supreme Court, lawyers for federal prisoner 29296-179 will take their last shot at shredding a lower court's conviction that sentenced him to 24 years in jail. If Skilling succeeds, his sentence could be shortened or he could win a new trial.
The federal government already has a 0-2 Enron record before the high court and a sloppy Enron trial record riddled with convictions overturned and reversed on appeal. For the Justice Department's long-disbanded Enron Task Force, Monday's arguments are about keeping their biggest Enron catch.
"At the end of the day, the task force is going to be judged mainly on whether this conviction stands," said Barry Pollack, a Washington D.C. white-collar defense lawyer who represented two lesser-known Enron defendants.
Skilling, 56, was convicted in May 2006 of 19 counts of conspiracy, securities fraud, insider trading and lying to auditors. He has been serving time at a prison in Colorado, where he has been teaching Spanish to fellow inmates.
Skilling led Enron's transformation from a sleepy natural gas pipeline company into a global energy trading powerhouse, which disintegrated in bankruptcy in 2001.
Skilling and Enron founder Kenneth Lay, once called "Kenny Boy" by President George W. Bush, were vilified as thieves and liars who erased billions of dollars in investor wealth.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Just throw Bill Clinton under the bus, where he belongs in this mess, and all will be forgiven.....
And where is the task force to hold Goldman Sachs, government, fannie & freddie, the federal reserve etc accountable for destroying the US economically?
The greedy are taking from the needy hand over fist with impunity. Haven't seen anything so bad in my lifetime.
However, his actions/inactions may all have been technically legal only because the corporate lobbyists had gotten their congressional whores to insert the proper language into the right bills under the cloak of darkness.
The whole Enron scandal is a drop in the ocean compared to what cause the current financial crisis.
“And, with the averting eyes of Andersen auditing. Which no longer exists because of this. Not all of Andersen, of course, but the Feds shut them down over it.”
They were rotten to the core. Their name kept showing up in cases unrelated to Enron. It seems that they were the ones to go to, when you needed your books fixed.
In my opinion they got off easy. They should have been completely disbanded (as in every [corrupt] accountant for himself) and NEVER permitted to re-form. That would have sent a message to CPAs to DO THEIR JOB.
“But that aspect of them is dead and never to reform AFAIK.”
Sounds good...I would not want those animals anywhere near a position of responsibility again. In my job, when I come across someone with that background, they are immediately rejected as corrupt. They had their chance to be honest...and they chose otherwise.
LOng to heal if not fatal
If we can stop the health care bill, and get some people in Congress to represent the people and reduce the size of government, I think we will survive, and eventually thrive again.
I don't know about you, but I ain't throwin’ in the towel yet, and I will continue to fight. Resistance is not futile.
Yeah, the same George W. Bush that prosecuted him.
His initials were B.C.
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