Jurors began a third day of deliberations on Monday in the fraud trial of former Enron chief executives Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay, after a weekend break.
The deliberations, in what is seen as the biggest corporate fraud trial in recent years, could lead to big prison terms for Skilling (52), who faces 28 counts of fraud and conspiracy, and Lay (64), who is charged with six counts.
A conviction in the conspiracy case would be a vindication for the government’s Enron taskforce, set up in the aftermath of one of the worst business scandals in recent history.
Lay and Skilling have maintained their innocence and claimed that Enron was only brought down by unflattering news reports and a conspiracy of short sellers.
Lay also faces a separate bench trial on federal banking violations, which began on Thursday. The Enron founder was expected to testify for his own defence on Monday.
In that trial, the Enron founder is accused of having wilfully and unlawfully used bank loans to finance stock purchases.
Prosecutors allege he obtained $75-million from the Bank of America, Chase Bank of Texas and Compass Bank in 1999 in order to buy margin stocks and thus placed federally insured financial organisations at risk.
The defence argued that many of the incriminating documents may have been signed by an automatic signature machine and not by Lay himself.
This trial should last only two to three days, but United States Judge Sim Lake — who presided over the jury trial of the two executives — said he would render his verdict only after the jurors in the conspiracy case have reached their own decision, in order not to influence them.
On the same floor, next to Lays bench trial, closing arguments in the Enron Broadband Services (EBS) re-trial of Kevin Howard and Michael Krautz are also expected on Monday before Judge Vanessa Gilmore.
Howard, the former finance chief of EBS, and Krautz (37), a former EBS accountant, face five charges each related to Project Braveheart, a transaction that involved selling the future earnings of a video deal Enron had with Blockbuster and recording it as current income.
Both men and three other former EBS employees were originally tried on charges of conspiracy and fraud in July 2005. The jury deadlocked on all 15 counts of fraud and conspiracy pending against Howard and Krautz, so a mistrial was declared. — AFP