NYT: Enron Jury Hears Judges Instructions

[Hissyspit]

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Enron-Trial.html?hp&ex=1147752000&en=85a8ad78429246d3&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Enron Jury Hears Judge's Instructions

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 15, 2006
Filed at 12:27 p.m. ET

HOUSTON (AP) -- Two former chief executives of Enron Corp. ''lied over and over and over again'' to investors and employees in a widespread fraud that cost victims millions of dollars, a federal prosecutor said Monday.

Enron founder Kenneth Lay and former Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling carried out their crimes ''through accounting tricks, fiction, hocus-pocus, trickery, misleading statements, half-truths, omissions and outright lies,'' prosecutor Kathryn Ruemmler told jurors and a packed courtroom in closing arguments.

Ruemmler, pacing back and forth before the jury box with her hands clasped behind her back, said Lay and Skilling did it all just to keep Enron's stock price up. The men are charged with conspiracy and fraud in the energy company's spectacular 2001 collapse.

And when Enron finances took a turn for the worse in 2001, ''Mr. Skilling and Mr. Lay had a choice,'' the prosecutor said. ''They could come clean and tell the truth about Enron's financial condition -- or they could lie to cover it up. They chose to lie.''

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The government began its closing argument after the U.S. District Judge Sam Lake told jurors to weigh with ''great care'' the testimony of witnesses who have pleaded guilty as part of a deal with prosecutors.

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[Robbien]

1. Ken Lay's banking fraud trial is going to be a non-jury trial!

The article says it will be heard by this same judge, Lake. Lake doesn't appear to be one who is taken in by the smoke and mirrors bs put out by Lay's defense.

Yuck, tomorrow we hear the defense spiel. What a circus that will be.