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Enron jury reaches verdict; Panel's decision on fate of Lay and Skilling will be announced in less than an hour
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| Contributor | Brandonius Maximus |
| Last Edited | Brandonius Maximus May 25, 2006 10:28am |
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| Category | Legal Ruling |
| News Date | Thursday, May 25, 2006 04:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | HOUSTON (CNNMoney.com) - The jury in the Enron case has reached a verdict, and the decision in the corporate fraud case will be announced in less than an hour, a court clerk announced Thursday.
The jury of eight women and four men reached their verdict on the sixth day of deliberations in the case of Enron founder Kenneth Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling, who were charged with conspiring to hide the financial losses that brought down what was once the nation's seventh-biggest company.
Skilling was charged with 28 counts of conspiracy, fraud and insider trading while Lay faced six counts of conspiracy and fraud.
Houston-based Enron, once one of the hottest companies on Wall Street, imploded in a matter of months after Skilling abruptly resigned as CEO in August 2001. Lay, who was chairman at the time, postponed his retirement plans to return to the helm.
Enron's collapse marked the first of the high-profile corporate scandals that rocked the nation, followed by WorldCom, Global Crossing, Adelphia and Tyco. The wave of fraud led to passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley law that tightened oversight of how American companies are audited.
After a government investigation that took 4-1/2 years, prosecutors presented evidence that Lay and Skilling orchestrated a conspiracy to artificially inflate profits, hide millions in losses and misrepresent the true nature of the company's finances.
The long-awaited trial began Jan. 31 in Houston, despite repeated protests from defense attorneys calling for a change in venue.
The defense argued that it was impossible to get a fair trial in Houston - the epicenter of Enron's collapse. Enron's bankruptcy, the biggest in U.S. history at the time, cost 4,000 employees their jobs and many of them their life savings. Investors lost billions
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