HOUSTON – At times Tuesday, it almost seemed easy to forget who was on trial – the one-time corporate chieftains Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling or the federal government’s own Enron Task Force.
As lawyers for Lay and Skilling laid out their closing arguments in the former Enron Corp. chief executives’ fraud trial, they shifted the focus squarely to prosecutors, painting them as bent on convicting the pair when they did nothing wrong.
In the day’s waning minutes in court, one of Lay’s lawyers even motioned to John Hueston, a task force prosecutor normally based in Los Angeles, and boomed: “Don’t come to Houston, Texas, and lie to us.”
The remark drew brief applause from Skilling and from members of Lay’s family watching in the courtroom.
Skewering the Enron Task Force was the theme of the day in six hours of defense arguments. Skilling lawyer Daniel Petrocelli suggested prosecutors had described Enron executives as “lieutenants” to raise a comparison between Enron and the Mafia.
As for the case against Skilling and Lay, Petrocelli said: “This was all manufactured after the fact. Because it’s Enron. After all, somebody has to pay. It’s Enron.”
Petrocelli portrayed the prosecutors as puppet masters, accusing them of seeking to win convictions by criminalizing innocent comments, honest mistakes and normal business practices.
“They had their eye on the prize. The prize was Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay, and that’s why we’re here,” Petrocelli said. “Documents don’t lie. People do. So you create evidence.”
The defense has contended all along that it was not a massive fraud that sank Enron in 2001 – rather that it was a lethal mix of negative press, lesser crimes by Enron Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow, short-sellers and the post-Sept. 11 bear market.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
