Former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling continued testifying in his and ex-Chairman Ken Lay's trial yesterday, maintaining his innocence and saying he didn't remember doing some of things he's been accused of.
Skilling's lawyer Daniel Petrocelli read through the 28 charges against Skilling paragraph by paragraph, and Skilling said the accusations were "false," "absurd" and "inconceivable."
"You're a smart guy, aren't you?" Petrocelli asked his client."Yes," replied Skilling, 52, known as a bright and volatile idea man who helped build Enron into the giant it once was.
"Are you smart enough to mastermind this kind of conspiracy and pull it off without getting caught for years?" Petrocelli asked.
"I don't think so," Skilling said. He said it never crossed his mind to commit crimes. Skilling said he had no lust for money or fame and Enron was always in such good shape, fraud was not needed to make it grow.
Among the things Skilling said he didn't remember were bumping up Enron's fourth-quarter 1999 earnings and a lawyer's memo that said Skilling hadn't signed off on approval sheets for former CFO Andy Fastow's side deals. He said he had never been part of any plan to "beat the street," or alter the company's reported earnings to meet Wall Street expectations.
The indictment against him deals specifically with an alleged earnings manipulation in the second quarter of 2000, when prosecutors claim Skilling ordered money taken from company reserves to meet analysts' expected earnings of 34 cents per share. "Are you just ordering these people: 'Come up with this number. We need it. I don't want to hear any more. I'm Jeff Skilling?'" Petrocelli asked. "No," Skilling said.
As far as Fastow's side deals, Skilling said they seemed good at first and denied giving Fastow "bear hugs" — oral side deals Fastow said Skilling made guaranteeing a profit for LJM. "I don't even know what a bear hug is," Skilling said. (He's obviously never seen this Internet magic.) Eventually, Skilling said he got tired of Fastow's greed and told him he had to choose between LJM and Enron, but he said he didn't know Fastow was stealing from the company.
However, Skilling also testified that Enron operated on such a large scale that the $125 million Fastow bragged about making from side deals in December 1999 and $22 million in a budget were relatively small enough that they could be considered "rounding errors." That got jurors' attention:
The $22 million example caused one alternate juror to look to her neighbor, eyes wide open, and with emphasis repeat silently the words "rounding error." Later on, when Skilling proclaimed the $12 million Nigerian barge deal "tiny," the same alternate juror rolled her eyes as she looked over at a fellow panel member.
And the arrogance meter creeps up just a tad.
add to digg
add to stumble upon
add to reddit