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Reacting to Gladwell's Enron article
It's been a week now since Malcolm Gladwell's New Yorker article on the injustice of the case against Jeff Skilling. One of the more revealing reactions to the article resulted from a question that Gladwell posed in this blog post...
Lay-Skilling, Week Fifteen
Week 15 of the corporate criminal case of the decade (previous weeks summary posts here) was the relative calm before the final battle of closing arguments next week. Although there was a skirmish over the Ostrich jury instruction, the lull...
Lay-Skilling, Week Fourteen
Week 14 (previous week summaries here) of the corporate criminal case of the decade is in the books and the biggest news is that U.S. District Judge Sim Lake has issued an edict that he does not want the case...
Lay-Skilling, Week Twelve
The Jeff Skilling segment of the corporate criminal trial of the decade concluded during Week Twelve (prior week summaries are here) as the former Enron CEO testified for a bit over three days on cross-examination from Enron Task Force director...
Lay-Skilling, Week Seven
As the seventh week (earlier week summaries here) of the epic corporate criminal trial of former key Enron executives Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling drew to a close, U.S. District Judge Sim Lake gave the lawyers and the jurors an...
Where is Waldo?, er, I mean Causey?
The mainstream media covering the criminal trial of former key Enron executives Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling continues mostly to miss the point that the prosecution's case over almost seven weeks now has been extraordinarily weak for a case of...
Oral argument today in the Nigerian Barge appeal
Oral argument takes place today at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans in the appeals of Dan Bayly, Robert Furst, James Brown and William Fuhs, the former Merrill Lynch executives who were convicted of wire fraud and...
While the price of asserting innocence is high, pleading guilty is lucrative
Alexei Barrionuevo, who has been doing a fine job covering the day-to-day developments in the Lay-Skilling trial for the New York Times, and his Times colleague Kurt Eichenwald -- who has written the best overall book on the Enron scandal,...
Causey plea deal expected today
The Chronicle, the Wall Street Journal ($), the NY Times and the Washington Post began reporting last night that former Enron chief accountant Richard Causey will enter into a plea bargain with the Enron Task Force this afternoon in Houston...
Thinking about the WSJ's Enron conflict of interest
The Chronicle's Loren Steffy thinks I'm stretching a bit in noting the conflict of interest that the Wall Street Journal has apparently decided to overlook in allowing John Emshwiller to report on the upcoming trial of the Enron Task Force's...
Fastow: "What do you mean 'tax fraud?'"
This earlier post noted that Lea Fastow -- a former mid-level Enron executive and wife of demonized former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow -- was prosecuted more harshly than normal for tax fraud because of her relationship to Fastow and endured...
More Enron indictments on the way?
As anticipated in this earlier post, U.S. District Judge Sim Lake concluded in a hearing yesterday that the defense team of former key Enron executives Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling and Richard Causey had not established in his mind that prosecutorial...
How does the Enron Task Force really feel about Arthur Andersen?
This earlier post noted the 180 that the Enron Task Force has recently taken in regard to defunct accounting firm Arthur Andersen. After demonizing the firm, gutting it with a misguided prosecution, and alleging that a number of the firm's...
USA Today scoops the majors in analyzing the Enron Task Force's legacy case
Is it just me or does anyone else find it odd that this USA Today article is doing a better job of covering the prosecutorial abuse that is taking place in the Enron-related criminal cases than supposedly more thorough national...
NY Times on the sad case of Dan Bayly
Landon Thomas, Jr. of the New York Times has written this major Sunday Times article about the sad case of Daniel Bayly, the former head of Merrill Lynch's global investment banking division who is presently serving a two and a...
Lay-Skilling-Causey witness intimidation allegations scheduled for hearing
This Mary Flood/Chronicle article reports that U.S. District Judge Sim Lake has scheduled a hearing in the Enron Task Force's legacy case against former key Enron executives Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling and Richard Causey over the defendants' allegations that the...
Where it first does not succeed, the Enron Task Force tries, tries again
The Chronicle's Mary Flood reports in this article that the Enron Task Force has obtained three "streamlined" indictments against the five former Enron Broadband executives who were the subject of the previous failed Task Force prosecution over the same subject...
Signs of desperation at the Enron Task Force?
Already having engaged in intimidation of witnesses and dubious plea-bargaining tactics, the Enron Task Force is showing signs of becoming desperate regarding its legacy case. As noted in this post from earlier in the week, the Enron Task Force has...
Piling on Arthur Andersen
It's looking as if the Texas State Board of Accountancy needs to catch up with the government's investigation into Enron. In this Chronicle article, John Roper and Purva Patel report that the Texas state accounting board is seeking disciplinary action...
Thinking about the Enron legacy case
It is currently the calm before the storm that will be the trial of the legacy case of the Enron Task Force -- that is, the criminal trial of former Enron executives Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, and Richard Causey that...
Finessing witness intimidation
When Don Corleone wanted to intimidate someone, he would "make them an offer that they could not refuse." Taking a page from the Don's book, when the Enron Task Force wants to intimidate a favorable defense witness from testifying in...
More on criminalizing risk-taking
Robert Weisberg is Edwin E. Huddleson, Jr. Professor of Law and director of the Criminal Justice Center at Stanford University, where he teaches a course on white collar crime with David Mills, who is a senior lecturer there. In this...
Is this all the better that the WSJ can do?
I recognize the Wall Street Journal's John R. Emshwiller has already cashed in on the Enron saga. But even that reason for wanting to move on to something else cannot explain this tepid ($) article on the prosecutorial misconduct that...
A Judge challenges the Enron Task Force's bludgeoning of a plea bargain
A frequent topic on this blog has been the unjust nature of the government's questionable tactic of bludgeoning business executives into plea bargains by playing on the executive's fear of a draconian prison sentence (often an effective life sentence) if...
2006 -- The Enron Trial Year
Over four years after Enron's descent into bankruptcy, 2006 is shaping up as the year of the Enron criminal trials. First, in mid-January, the trial of the Enron Task Force's legacy Enron case -- i.e., the trial that everyone will...
Woody Hayes' advice to defense counsel in the Enron cases
Peter Henning over at the White Collar Criminal Prof Blog is skeptical that U.S. District Judge Sim Lake's letter-writing campaign is going to induce any of the recalcitrant witnesses in the criminal case against former Enron executives Ken Lay, Jeff...
Judge Lake's letter-writing campaign
In a hearing yesterday afternoon in Houston federal court, U.S. District Judge Sim Lake continued to grapple with strong evidence that the Enron Task Force has engaged in a systematic campaign of intimidating witnesses in the upcoming trial of former...
The Lay-Skilling-Causey motion to dismiss
As noted in earlier posts here and here, the longstanding suspicions that the Enron Task Force has been engaging in witness tampering in the Enron-related criminal cases is now in full public view. This Mary Flood article reports on the...
Judge examining Lay-Skilling witness tampering charges
Following on this post from earlier this summer, U.S. District Judge Sim Lake gave his strongest indication to date that he is prepared to take action against the Enron Task Force's strategy to deny former Enron chairman Ken Lay, former...
The Enron Task Force attempts to muzzle Sherron Watkins
When the Task Force fingered the record number of 114 co-conspirators in their legacy case against former Enron chairman Ken Lay, former CEO Jeff Skilling and former chief accountant Richard Causey, the Task Force effectively ensured that most defense witnesses...
The Merrill Lynch defendants appeal in the Nigerian Barge case - criminalization of business run amok
The Enron-related Nigerian Barge case has been a frequent topic on this blog as a prime example of the Justice Department's dubious criminalization of common business practices in the post-Enron era. As a result of that questionable policy, four former...
The Chron interviews outgoing Enron Task Force Director
The Chronicle's Mary Flood, who has done a fine job of covering the Enron case for the local newspaper, interviews Andrew Weissmann, the former Enron Task Force director who resigned as director of the Task Force this past week amidst...
A crushing defeat for the Enron Task Force
In yet another stunning blow in a series of setbacks to the Enron Task Force, the jury in the Enron Broadband trial returned late this afternoon and advised U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore that they had acquitted three of the...
Weissman steps down as Enron Task Force chief
In a development that is intriguing by its timing, Andrew Weissmann is resigning as director of the Justice Department's Enron Task Force, reportedly to enter private practice, although that report has not been confirmed. Another Task Force prosecutor -- Sean...
Another Enron plea bargain
On the day that the jury in the Enron Broadband trial began deliberations, the Enron Task Force announced that Christopher Calger, a former executive with Enron North America, had pleaded guilty to a criminal conspiracy count and agreed to cooperate...
When "Justice" destroys good reputations
The Sihpol acquittal yesterday focuses attention on an important aspect of the current wave of criminalizing merely questionable business transactions -- that is, the government's destruction of good reputations in its quest to obtain convictions and prevent juries from hearing...
Lay's team heaves a sigh of relief
U.S. District Judge Sim Lake ruled Thursday afternoon that bank-fraud charges against Enron former chairman and CEO Ken Lay would be tried to him without a jury early next year immediately following the multi-defendant conspiracy jury trial against Mr. Lay,...
The Enron Broadband Trial
Almost three and a half years after Enron collapsed into bankruptcy, the first criminal trial involving exclusively former Enron executives will crank up in front of U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore in Houston federal court on Monday. Here is the...
Lawyers, bring your schedules
Coming on the heels of this earlier post on the Enron Task Force's use of Ken Lay's prior public statements to move for an early trial on the pending bank fraud charges pending against him, Mary Flood of the Chronicle...
The Enron law of unintended consequences
Remember that motion that former Enron chairman and CEO Ken Lay filed last fall in which he requested a separate trial from his Enron co-defendants Jeff Skilling and Richard Causey? You know, the one in which U.S. District Judge Sim...
That's one helluva conspiracy
The Enron-related criminal cases just seem to get more bizarre by the day. This Chronicle article reports that the Enron Task Force has named 114 unindicted co-conspirators in the Task Force's criminal case against former Enron executives Ken Lay, Jeffrey...
Lay's bid for a separate trial backfires
U.S. District Judge Sim Lake >ruled unexpectedly on Tuesday that former Enron Chairman and CEO Ken Lay will face two separate criminal trials -- one with former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling and former chief Enron accountant Richard Causey, and another...
Ken Lay's Washington Post op-ed
In this Washington Post op-ed, former Enron chairman and chief executive officer Kenneth Lay makes the following disclosure and asks a very reasonable question: At my request, my lawyers have filed motions in federal court asking for an immediate and...
Lay's proposed September trial date denied
U.S. District Judge Sim Lake denied former Enron Chairman and CEO Kenneth Lay's motion for a September trial date during a hearing on Wednesday, but agreed that Lay was entitled to a quick trial. Judge Lake did not set a...
Ken Lay presses for a speedy trial
In an astounding move in a case of nearly unprecedented negative publicity, Ex-Enron Chairman and CEO Kenneth Lay requested U.S. District Judge Sim Lake today to grant a speedy trial -- even possibly waving a jury trial to get it...
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