Category Archives: Enronarama

Sherron Watkins, best known for her whistleblowing memo just before Enron imploded, testified today in the trial of Kenny Boy Lay and Jeff Skilling. A very talkative Watkins took the jurors step by step through her discovery of what she … Continue reading → Continue reading →

My stars, are we already at the Andy Fastow testimony part of the Lay/Skilling trial? I knew this was progressing faster than I’d thought, and I admit I’ve not been paying much attention to it lately (thankfully, Houstonist, Loren Steffy, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Ah, the memories that this must bring back. Watching a video shot five years ago this month, defendants Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling looked up on a big screen in court Wednesday and saw themselves predict that by now Enron … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The defense got its first crack at a prosecution witness yesterday, and it went about as you might expect. Daniel Petrocelli, lead defense lawyer for former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling, repeatedly asked [Mark] Koenig about his plea agreement with the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

We’re on day two of the prosecution’s case, and if we’ve learned anything from yesterday’s testimony by Mark Koenig, it’s that this trial is going to be wicked long. Basically, the Princess Bride/Good Parts Version of the story will begin … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Gads. I can tell that it’s going to be impossible to keep up with all the Skilling/Lay trial happenings. Opening arguments are already over, and the first prosecution witness is testifying as I blog. Just subscribe to the feeds for … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Jury selection for the trials of Kenny Boy Lay and Jeff Skilling is underway, and if Judge Sim Lake has his way, it’ll be all over today as well. Here‘s some background on the process. The Chron is gearing up … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The Skilling/Lay trial will stay right here in Houston. As expected, U.S. District Judge Sim Lake ordered late Monday that the request from ex-Enron chairman Ken Lay and ex-CEO Jeff Skilling to move the case be denied. The pair face … Continue reading → Continue reading →

From the Sunday Chron: Mixed feelings from former Enron employees regarding the upcoming trials of Jeff Skilling and Kenny Boy Lay. Some former employees harbor more sympathy for Lay, who was widely regarded as a fatherly figure in Enron’s halcyon … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The movie Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room, based on the book by the same name, is now out on DVD for your home viewing enjoyment. Good timing for them, what with the Lay/Skilling trial fixing to get underway … Continue reading → Continue reading →

With jury selection in the Lay/Skilling trial imminent, the Chron asks will they get the presumption of innocence? “As a practical matter, we all do have opinions of whether someone famous has done something wrong or not,” University of Houston … Continue reading → Continue reading →

And the deal for Rick Causey is five to seven years in the clink in return for “cooperation” against Skilling and Kenny Boy. Causey pleaded guilty to securities fraud during a re-arraignment hearing before Judge Sim Lake today. The plea … Continue reading → Continue reading →

At 2 PM today, former Enron chief accountant Rick Causey will take a plea rather than go to trial. It wasn’t known what the exact terms will be but the deal includes cooperating with the government — which may include … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Hope everyone who celebrated Christmas yesterday had a good one. The one piece of news from the day was this story about former Enron chief accounting officer Rick Causey talking to the feds about possibly taking a plea. Causey has … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Kenny Boy Lay gives full embrace to the Idiot Defense in a speech to the Houston Forum. Just a month before his Jan. 17 federal trial on seven conspiracy and fraud charges, the former Enron chairman drew polite applause with … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Missed this earlier in the week, but as always Tom was on top of it: The defense team for Jeff Skilling, Rick Causey, and Kenny Boy Lay have filed a motion to dismiss all charges on grounds of prosecutorial intimidation … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I’m still puzzling through this story from yesterday. It’s not the Super Bowl or the All-Star Game. But the big Enron trial coming up in January featuring former head honchos Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling and Rick Causey as defendants will … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Via Banjo, local blogger Slampo relates his experience as a juror in a mock trial for Enron Broadband a couple of years ago. There’s quite a bit of grist for the mill there, but his discussion of former EBS CEO … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Holy crap. I did not expect this. Three months after the Enron Internet fraud trial began, prosecutors failed Wednesday to win a single conviction against any of the five defendants. After deliberating less than 24 hours over four days, a … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The timing of this is rather curious. The Enron Task Force, which has filed 34 criminal charges against ex-Enron employees and their associates at other businesses since its inception in January 2002, has just gotten its third director. Sean Berkowitz … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Enron prosecutors tells the jury they saw what the defendants were really doing behind the scenes. Final arguments began Tuesday in the Enron Broadband Services trial, with the prosecution telling jurors they got to see behind the scenes and under … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The defense rested on Thursday in the Enron Broadband trial, and the prosecution put on its brief rebuttal case on Friday, meaning that closing arguments (Tuesday) and jury deliberations are up next. Tom notes that there was some drama on … Continue reading → Continue reading →

As of Friday morning, Lea Fastow is a free woman after departing the halfway house she’d been in for the past month. Lea Fastow, a daughter of the prominent Weingarten real estate and retail family, will now be on one … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I scanned this story yesterday but didn’t have much time to think about it. In an unusual move, a federal judge Thursday let lawyers for former Enron executives Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling ask the attorneys for the 15 people … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I confess, I’ve sort of lost touch with the ongoing Enron Broadband trial. Like Tom, who provides us with a nice update on the case, I thought it would be closer to finished by now. Those poor jurors – I … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Lea Fastow has Left the pokey, but she still has five weeks in a halfway house to go. Hand-in-hand with her soon-to-be-imprisoned husband, Lea Fastow walked out of a downtown Houston prison before dawn today, then took a short ride … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The US Supreme Court has unanimously overturned the conviction against accounting firm Arthur Andersen for shredding documents related to the Enron investigation. The high court found that the trial judge’s 2002 jury instructions were so vague that jurors could have … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The prosecution took longer than they thought they would to put on their case, a development which almost led to a juror revolt and which did lead to the defense making the slightly bizarre offer to help pay their salaries, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

You may think that any trial which features mixed-up videotapes would be a generally exciting one, but the Enron Broadband trial appears to have bogged down in a bunch of boring technobabble. Tom points to this Chron story from last … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The prosecution is still presenting its case in the Enron Broadband trial. Their last witness for the week was a techie who testified that EBS was going to have to rely on other companies’ networks to deliver what it was … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Having been caught with the wrong tape during Ken Rice’s testimony in the Enron Broadband trial, the prosecution has to explain the error while underscoring the fact that the bit they cared about, in which EBS honcho Rex Shelby made … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Remember that defense claim from Friday in the Enron Broadband trial that a videotape shown by the prosecution was never shown to stock analysts? Well, it turns out the defense was right. Watching two videotapes simultaneously today, jurors in the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I had forgotten that Mark Cuban was the Executive Director Producer of Enron: The Smartest Guys In the Room. I remember noticing it in the credits when I watched it, then promptly forgot about it. Anyway, the flick has been … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Defense attorneys in the Enron Broadband trial are claiming that a video which shows one former EBS executiva making false claims about the company’s capabilities, was never shown to stock analysts, contrary to prosecution claims. Defense attorney Tony Canales on … Continue reading → Continue reading →