LAT: Defense Says Doubt, Not Greed, Hurt Enron (Lay, Skilling to testify)

[DeepModem Mom]

Defense Says Doubt, Not Greed, Hurt Enron
By Thomas S. Mulligan, Times Staff Writer


HOUSTON — Enron Corp.'s shocking 2001 collapse was caused by a crisis of confidence in the company's financial prospects and not by a conspiracy involving Kenneth L. Lay and Jeffrey K. Skilling, lawyers for the former corporate chieftains said in the opening arguments of their federal trial here Tuesday.

The defense challenged the government's contention that Lay, Enron's former chairman, and Skilling, the company's onetime chief executive, lied to the public to conceal the energy-trading giant's shaky financial condition.

There was no need to do so, the lawyers said, because even after the bursting of the dot-com stock bubble and the 9/11 attacks, the company was fundamentally healthy.

"Enron was no house of cards, no crooked company," said Daniel M. Petrocelli, Skilling's lead defense lawyer. "It was a shining star."

Both Lay and Skilling will testify, their lawyers said, setting up potentially dramatic confrontations with prosecutors in a trial expected to last four months. Lay, 63, and Skilling, 52, are charged with multiple counts of fraud and conspiracy and could spend decades in prison if convicted....


http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-enron1feb01,0,811650.story?coll=la-home-business

[shance]

1. Let the delusion thrive as Lay and Skilling dismissed employees lives

and their futures.

They should get life at the least.

[Demeter]

2. Stupidity Is Not A Defense

not at that rate of compensation and level of responsibility. And neither is ignorance of the law. These men are guilty--and fraud is the least of their crimes. The really BIG one is funnelling all that money to BushCo--wish they could bring that point out in the trial and on the front pages of the WSJ. Airing the truth would be punishment for all parties to that crime.

[wakeme2008]

3. Then why were they selling THEIR stock

:grr:

[daleo]

5. I guess the doubt must have spread to them too

Or, they were just protecting their investments from the fickle public.

:rofl:

[Kagemusha]

4. Crisis of confidence caused BY the conspiracy perhaps?

It's a thin defense.

[phantom power]

6. Clap harder! Clap harder! Tinkerbell is dying!

[DebbieCDC]

7. Enron Defense - WTF happened?

WTF happened to Dan Petrocelli? I had a ton of respect and admiration for him after he represented the Goldmans against OJ "find the real killers" Simpson and won that case for them, how the fuck can he turn around and defend these assholes? I know everyone is entitled to a defense but Jebus, how can you go from integrity to whore in nothing flat?

[wordpix2]

9. most lawyers=whores, they will fight for their clients' money no matter if

the clients are guilty or not.

[otohara]

8. Will Houston Juror's Be Forgiving - They Give Bush All The

wiggle room in the world - guy get's away with murder and Texas is still Bush country. Ken Lay comes off as a Bush clone IMO.

[tanyev]

10. Same defense Dubya is going to use

when this house of cards economy he's so proud of comes crashing down.

[WhiteTara]

11. so much for their defense...head guy says they were

right there
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=a0_7I_nybZiA&refer=us
Feb. 1 (Bloomberg) -- A former Enron Corp. official contradicted ex-chairman Kenneth Lay's defense that he was uninvolved with daily management and said former chief executive Jeffrey Skilling knew the company changed earnings reports to meet forecasts.

Mark Koenig, Enron's former head of investor relations who's pleaded guilty to a fraud charge, testified as the first prosecution witness in Lay and Skilling's fraud trial. The two men are accused of orchestrating the fraud that forced the seventh-largest U.S. company by sales into bankruptcy in 2001.
snip
Koenig also told jurors that he and other senior managers met weekly on the 50th floor of Enron's Houston headquarters. Skilling and Lay, whose offices were located on that floor, led the meetings. At those meetings, officials would update the company's top executives about events within their units.