ENRON Exec Pleads for New Trial

The Whistler • March 2, 2010

Former Enron CEO Jeffery Skilling’s appeal for a new trial was heard by the US Supreme Court today, and according to Bloomberg, the court was divided over Skilling’s plea.

Skilling’s appeal says the atmosphere in Houston when the trial began in January 2006 was one of hostility toward him, fed by unrelenting, negative media coverage. The federal government contends that the trial judge, after questioning the jurors, was satisfied that each could assess the evidence impartially.
Skilling’s appeal also contends that a federal law banning so-called honest services fraud is unconstitutionally vague.

By all accounts, Skilling did nothing that former Fannie Mae executives Jim Johnson, Franklin Raines, and Jamie Gorelick did, hiding losses off the GSE’s balance sheet to illicitly boost company profits and their own multi-million dollar bonuses. The Fannie Mae execs, good Democrat Pooh-Bahs all, were never prosecuted. And their fraud cost the public one helluva lot more than any of Mr. Skilling’s accounting shenanigans ever did.

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http://Array ignandy

“enrons basic model was a good one…”

I don’t think they follow GAAP, the think that I wonder: how can all the authority SEC etc. not until they come big?
robert108

“enrons basic model was a good one…”

No, it wasn’t. There is no established market price for electricity, since almost all electricity markets are govt controlled public utilities. It was really intended to be a patronage game for Clinton.
sayanything-203

I believe the gist of Skilling’s argument wasn’t just the media coverage per se, but the fact that ENRON was locally based, and that the trial judge’s questioning of potentiial jurors wasn’t sufficient protection under the circumstances.
Lioncourt

By all accounts, Skilling did nothing that former Fannie Mae executives Jim Johnson, Franklin Raines, and Jamie Gorelick

Doesn’t make it right or legal.

I’m torn on this. I’m not sure media coverage should be enough reason to move a trial, but the judge should have excluded any juror who personally lost money in the case.
sayanything-203

I chose to post this specifically because those on the Left are so fond of using this same sort of insinuation by example to rationalize their point of view on issues. (Canada’s healthcare system, or the disparity between states, or races, in capital punishment cases, for example. Europe’s “beneficial” social democracy used to be used often too, but with the EU’s financial dominos starting to crumble very publicly, not so much of late.)

My point isn’t that Skilling isn’t guilty. But that Johnson, Raines, and Gorelick are equally guilty (or more so) of exactly the same thing that landed Skilling, and his wife, in prison.
Lioncourt

I think it was both.

That the judges questioning was not sufficient to suss out bias and that the area was so poisoned that change of venue should have been granted.
sayanything-4642

enrons basic model was a good one…… the government let them do it legally.

besides that, if you owned the stock form the start you made a killing. even if you held it the entire time you made a HUGE return on your divs lone.
sayanything-4808

Well, even a broken clock be right twice a day.

Nope, it doesn’t make it right or legal, but it does underscore that those who did the same things should not be given a pass, such as certain Democratic Party connected people seem pretty obviously to have, nor should his punishment be without recognition that others who did exactly the same got a free ride. It is to encourage disrespect and disregard for the legal system for him to get savaged for a crime that others were not even prosecuted for. It smacks of dishonesty and hypocrisy, and invites a loss of faith.

There’s enough of that in the world already.

If the time is not up on filing charges against the other miscreants, then the Dems should do it. I don’t believe for a second they will, but in ethical principle, they damn well should.
sayanything-277

Virtually all common stockholder corporations do their best to make their P & L and balance sheets look as good as they can and sometimes their efforts cross some imaginary line. These corporations also employ auditing firms to make sure that their accounting efforts pass legal litmus tests. To prosecute a corporate CEO because the auditors didn’t do their job seems to me to be extreme.

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ENRON Exec Pleads for New Trial

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