Results tagged “danielpetrocelli”

Five months after former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling was found guilty of 19 counts of fraud, conspiracy and insider trading, Skilling will learn his fate at 1 p.m. today in the federal courthouse at 515 Rusk Ave. And the hearing is open to the public — so hey, if you're having a slow afternoon, why not swing by?

This summer, about two months after former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling was convicted of fraud, conspiracy, insider trading and lying to auditors in connection with the Enron collapse, U.S. District Judge Sim Lake denied Skilling's request to have his conviction overturned. But never say Skilling is a quitter: Now, he's again asking Lake to overturn his conviction, this time based on a federal appeals court ruling. The ruling in question had to do with some...

The Chronicle is reporting that ex-Enron CEO Jeff Skilling was arrested and accused of public intoxication in Dallas earlier this month — but he won't go to jail for violating the terms of his bond. Skilling was arrested in the early morning of Sept. 9 in the 3600 block of McKinney Avenue; he wasn't drinking at the time and didn't resist arrest. Public intoxication, a Class C misdemeanor, carries a fine of up to $500; Skilling got a $385 ticket and was briefly held in a city jail.

Remember earlier this summer when Enron prosecutors said they would seek $183 million from former Enron execs Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling — money the government says is ill-gotten gains earned using fraud and conspiracy at Enron? And remember how Skilling complained about his $140 million share of that a few weeks later? Well, that might not have been such a good idea, it looks like: Since Lay is dead, the government has decided to ask Skilling to pony up the whole $183 million. Whoops!

We imagine Jeff Skilling is somewhere drowning his sorrows in a Schlitz: Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Sim Lake denied the former Enron CEO's request to overturn his convictions on fraud, conspiracy and insider trading charges. Skilling claimed the evidence presented in his trial earlier this year was insufficient, so his convictions on 19 of 28 charges should be dismissed. Well, nice try anyway, Jeff.

Thanks to the Chronicle's Shelby Hodge, we have an idea of what Ken Lay's first memorial service was like yesterday. The Lay family barred media from the Aspen, Colo., service, which we suppose is why the AP story was relatively short on details. But Hodge talked to some people who attended, and she got a pretty good idea of what went on. Nearly 200 people attended the service, at which the Rev. Bill Lawson of...

Details on Ken Lay's death are slowly trickling in, including early word that he did die of natural causes, according to preliminary autopsy results. That deals a blow (admittedly, a tiny one) to the conspiracy theories Houstonist has been hearing all day.

Federal prosecutors aren't finished with Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling's assets yet: They filed a motion Friday asking for $183 million from the pair of former Enron executives — money prosecutors say came from fraud Lay and Skilling committed while they led Enron. The sum includes $140 million in stock sales, compensation and bonuses from Skilling and $43 million from a bonus and use of a company credit line from Lay. The motion says Lay and Skilling "were able to sell Enron stock and reap hundreds of millions of dollars in benefits, all while knowingly misrepresenting Enron's true financial condition to the public."

Turns out Jeff Skilling has a plan to save his skin after all: The former Enron CEO has asked a judge to overturn his guilty verdict. Sneaky devil! We never would have thought of that.

Things aren't that easy these days for ex-Enron CEO Jeff Skilling: Not only has he been convicted of helping bring down a huge energy company, but now he can't get at some $60 million of his money. Skilling's lawyers are trying to change that, though, by asking the government to release the $60 mil — partly so he can have some spending money, but mostly because Skilling still owes his legal team millions of dollars.

By now, we've all heard a lot (and a lot of the same) about yesterday's Enron verdict — and all this, of course, is only the beginning as we enter four months of speculation about Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling's sentencing and the appeals the ex-execs are certain to file. But in the meantime, there's still some wrapping up to do from yesterday, beginning with Lay and Skilling's reaction to their convictions on charges of...

A few hours after the Enron verdict, and details are starting to come out — some interesting, some not so much. And so many more to come, we're sure. But here are a few of the highlights so far:

Yesterday it was the defense's turn to make its final arguments in the Enron trial — and in six hours of often loud speechifying, Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling's lawyers reasserted their claim that the two former Enron executives had nothing to do with the company's collapse.

The prosecution began presening its closing arguments in the Ken Lay/Jeff Skilling trial yesterday, saying the former Enron executives were "masters of the cover story" who lied repeatedly to shareholders and the public. Prosecutor Katheryn Ruemmler told jurors that Lay and Skilling relied on "accounting tricks, fiction, hocus-pocus, trickery, misleading statements, half-truths, omissions and outright lies" to cheat and steal from Enron's shareholders, the true owners of the company:

Judge Sim Lake and the lawyers in the Enron trial met yesterday to agree on the legal instructions Lake will give the jury Monday, which include a charge to consider whether ex-Enron Chairman Ken Lay and ex-CEO Jeff Skilling were "deliberately ignorant," ignoring warnings about improper conduct at the company, or whether they acted on a "good faith" intention to fulfill their duties. Lay lawyer Michael Ramsey, back in court this week after five weeks...

Even though testimony is over in the Enron trial, the action isn't — well, depending on what you call "action," we guess. Yesterday, prosecutors asked Judge Sim Lake to keep the defense from saying that the government didn't call, or barred, certain witnesses during its closing argument next week.

Ex-Enron CEO Jeff Skilling finished his eight days of testimony in his own trial yesterday, saying his experience since Enron started its downward slide has made him wish he never ran the company, which was the seventh largest in the nation before it collapsed. "It's been a tough six years, it's been a really hard six years," he told reporters Thursday.

Prosecutor Sean Berkowitz abruptly ended cross-examination of former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling yesterday after asking Skilling whether he didn't leave Enron in August 2001 because he wanted to become CEO of Lucent Technologies. Skilling has given several reasons for leaving the company, mainly related to Enron burnout and wanting to spend more time with his family, but prosecutors claim he resigned because he knew Enron was headed for collapse.

In his second day of cross-examination, former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling lost his cool at times Tuesday, even seeming to try to take control of the questioning from prosecutor Sean Berkowitz. Skilling lashed out at Berkowitz when Berkowitz was pressing him on the allegation that Enron execs used the company's reserves like a "cookie jar" to make Enron look more profitable. Skilling said the reserves weren't used in that way: "It's not only no —...

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.

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...

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.

Defense lawyer Daniel Petrocelli went after ex-Enron CFO Andrew Fastow yesterday, trying to cast doubt on Fastow's previous testimony about the company's shady side financial deals and former CEO Jeff Skilling's involvement in them. It was Fastow's second day of cross-examination in the trial of Skilling and ex-Enron Chairman Ken Lay. On Tuesday, Fastow had testified about a "global galactic list" he made in 2000 to keep track with all Enron's side deals, which he...

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.

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.

Another week, another witness: Sometime early this week — maybe today — ex-Enron head of investor relations Mark Koenig's cross-examination will finally end and another former exec will take the stand in the trial of Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling. Rice, the former head of Enron Broadband Services, confessed to securities fraud in a 2004 plea agreement; last year, he testified that Skilling helped prepare a fraudulent report to analysts in 2000. Rice said the purpose of that false report was to make Enron Broadband Services look better than it was — and indeed, the company's stock price jumped 25 percent the day the report was given. But employees have testified that Enron Broadband Services never really got off the ground and had disappeared by mid-2001, a few months before Enron went bankrupt.

Under cross-examination by Jeff Skilling's lawyer, ex-Enron head of investor relations Mark Koenig said Thursday that neither Skilling, the former Enron CEO, or former Enron head Ken Lay specifically told him to lie about the company's well-being. It was the fourth day of cross-examination of Koenig in the Lay/Skilling trial, and lawyer Daniel Petrocelli continued trying to make Koenig's previous testimony seem forced and unfounded.

Much of Wednesday's episode of the Ken Lay/Jeff Skilling trial was taken up by a February 2001 webcast to Enron employees and tapes of two 2001 telephone calls, all made while the company was on its way to collapse. Local media picked up on the irony of the webcast, in which Lay and Skilling predicted Enron would be "the world's leading company" by 2006.

Defense lawyers in the Ken Lay/Jeff Skilling trial kept trying to undermine the credibility of Mark Koenig, the first government witness, Tuesday.

As the trial of former Enron execs Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling picks up again today (everyone gets a three-day weekend, of sorts), jurors are no doubt be dreaming of in-court hilarity, the Chronicle staff is patting itself on the back again and again for being noticed by The New York Times and teams of appellate lawyers will be thinking of ways to send the whole horrific escapade to appeal.