Skilling wins some, loses some at 5th Circuit

Former Enron Corp. CEO Jeffrey K. Skilling got some bad news and some good news today in an opinion from a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In a 104-page opinion, 5th Circuit Judges Jerry Smith of Houston and Edward Prado of San Antonio and U.S. District Judge Alia Ludlum of the Western District of Texas, who was sitting by designation, affirmed Skilling’s conviction on criminal charges related to the downfall of Enron Corp. but vacated his 24-year sentence. The panel remanded to U.S. District Judge Sim Lake of the Southern District of Texas for resentencing. “Skilling failed to demonstrate that the government’s case rested on an incorrect theory of law or that any reversible errors infected his trial,” the panel wrote. According to the opinion, Skilling had argued that the government prosecuted him using an “invalid legal theory,” Lake used erroneous jury instructions, the jury was biased, prosecutors engaged in unconstitutional misconduct and his sentence was not proper. The panel found that Lake, who gave Skilling 292 months in prison, did not properly apply the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. Skilling’s criminal defense attorney, Daniel Petrocelli, a partner in O’Melveny & Myers in Century City, Calif., did not immediately return a telephone message seeking comment. In a statement, Matthew Friedrich, acting assistant attorney general for the U.S. Department of Justice’s criminal division, writes, “Today’s ruling is a victory for all those harmed by Jeff Skilling and his co-conspirators. We are gratified that the Court, in a 105-page opinion, rejected all of Skilling’s challenges to his conviction.” Oral arguments in Skilling’s appeal were held in April. In May 2006, a federal court jury in Lake's Houston court convicted Skilling of 19 criminal charges, including one count of conspiracy, 12 counts of securities fraud, five counts of false statements to auditors and one count of insider trading. He has been in a federal prison in Minnesota since December 2006.
-- Brenda Sapino Jeffreys