Jurors deliberated for a fifth day on Wednesday in the fraud trial of former Enron chief executives Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay, after a separate trial of Lay before a judge on banking charges concluded.
The eight women and four men, who have already debated for about 24 hours over four days, have given no indication of their progress.
Skilling (52) faces 28 counts of fraud and conspiracy and a maximum of 275 years in prison if convicted on all counts. Lay (64) is charged with six counts related to the period of three months after he resumed chief-executive duties, with a combined maximum punishment of 45 years.
Lay and Skilling, accused of conspiracy to defraud investors and hide Enron’s massive debts, have maintained their innocence and claimed that Enron was brought down by negative news reports and a conspiracy of short sellers.
On Tuesday, a bench trial concluded before United States District Judge Sim Lake on separate charges against Lay for federal banking violations. The judge, who is also presiding in the jury trial, has indicated he would await the jury’s decision in the conspiracy trial before rendering his own verdict.
As a result of the latest developments, three Enron-related deliberations are now running concurrently on the ninth floor of the federal court of Houston: the conspiracy trial jury for Lay and Skilling, Judge Lake’s deliberations and a separate jury trial for two former Enron Broadband Services employees, Kevin Howard and Michael Krautz.
Howard, a former finance chief of EBS, and Michael Krautz, a former EBS accountant, face fraud charges related to Project Braveheart, a transaction that involved selling the future earnings of a video deal Enron had with Blockbuster Video 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