Results tagged “chairmanlay”

Wednesday's installment of the Ken Lay/Jeff Skilling trial focused on Sherron Watkin's memo to Ken Lay warning of an impending financial meltdown at Enron — a memo a Houston lawyer called nothing more than "office gossip."

Defense lawyers began trying to chip away at the prosecution's story Monday, the first day of the defense's case in the trial of former Enron executives Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling. The main testimony came from Joannie Williamson, a former assistant to ex-Enron Chairman Lay, ex-CEO Skilling and ex-head of investor relations Mark Koenig, who was on the witness stand for more than eight days for the prosecution. Williamson said yesterday that Koenig perjured himself when he pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting securities fraud in August 2004.

Prosecutors rested their case against former Enron executives Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling yesterday, asking Judge Sim Lake to drop three charges against Skilling and one against Lay. The dropped charges against Skilling concern a 2000 deal, Project Greyhawk, which prosecutors say the ex-Enron CEO and others created to take advantage of an anticipated jump in Enron's stock price. But to prosecute those allegations, the government would have had to get into the business of...

Nine weeks in, and here we are in what may be the last days of the prosecution's case in the trial of ex-Enron execs Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling. Hang in there: It's almost time for everyone to go to the lobby to get popcorn and a Coke. But first, just a bit more testimony to go.

Defense lawyers chipped away at former Enron Treasurer Ben Glisan Jr.'s testimony in the Ken Lay/Jeff Skilling trial yesterday, accusing him of exaggerating his stories so that he could have an easier time in prison. Glisan is serving a five-year sentence for securities fraud and wire fraud; he started in a low-security prison in Bastrop but was transferred to an unfenced prison camp near Beaumont after he cooperated with government prosecutors in an earlier Enron-related case.

Former Enron treasurer Ben Glisan Jr. took the stand in the Ken Lay/Jeff Skilling trial Tuesday, telling jurors that he helped make Enron look like it wasn't having serious financial problems — and that his former bosses not only knew about the trouble, but lied to the public about it.

Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling must be getting tired of these pesky former Enron executives who keep taking the witness stand at their trial. The latest was Sherron Watkins, who wrote a memo to ex-Chairman Lay in 2001 warning about coming trouble in the company's finances and testified yesterday that she saw all kinds of shady business practices during her time at the Big E. Watkins told jurors that she went to work for ex-CFO...

Three witnesses testified yesterday in the trial of Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling: one who criticized ex-Enron CFO Andrew Fastow's side deals, one who helped create them and one who had no idea who Fastow was. The one who criticized was Vince Kaminski, a former risk analyst at Enron who testified that ex-Enron Chairman Lay and ex-CEO Skilling ignored his concerns about side deals run by Fastow. Kaminski said his first bad reaction to the...

Former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow delivered more goods for the prosecution during his testimony Wednesday and didn't back down from his accusations against Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling despite a full assault from Skilling's lawyer Daniel Petrocelli. In his second day of testimony in the trial of ex-Chairman Lay and ex-CEO Skilling, Fastow told jurors that Lay knowingly misled reporters and employees about the company's health.

Yesterday in the Lay/Skilling trial, defense lawyers hit witness Kevin Hannon right where it hurt: in the funny bone. Hannon, the former CEO of Enron Broadband Services, testified Thursday that ex-Enron CEO Jeff Skilling told executives during a May 2001 meeting, "They're on to us," referring to a Wall Street investment firm questioning Enron's earnings. On Monday, Skilling lawyer Mark Holscher asked Hannon whether Skilling might not have made the statement sarcastically: "Anything's possible," Hannon...

Things didn't go so well for Ken Lay in his trial last week: A former Enron exec testified that ex-Enron Chairman Lay knowingly reported false information about the company's well-being and used the company like an ATM — a high-dollar ATM, of course.

Paula Rieker, the former managing director of investor relations at Enron, stuck to her guns under cross-examination yesterday, maintaining that the company's management gave investors and analysts a false growth story. In her second day of testimony in the Ken Lay/Jeff Skilling trial, Rieker said she "fell into the role of being a good corporate citizen" by turning a blind eye to many Enron practices she thought were questionable — and she wasn't the only one.