LinkAfter four years, Enron's Lay and Skilling to face jury

Sat Jan 28, 2006 11:10 AM ET

By Matt Daily

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Four years after the dramatic demise of Enron Corp., former chiefs Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling will enter a federal courtroom in Houston on Monday to face charges linking them to one of the biggest business disasters in U.S. history.
The case against Lay, 63, and Skilling, 52, hinges on whether the two executives, who once enthralled Wall Street by creating a company that became the nation's seventh largest, were aware of Enron's financial shell game that pumped up earnings while hiding billions of dollars in debt.

The Enron Task Force, a special unit created by the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate wrongdoing at the Houston-based company, will parade several former Enron executives who have struck plea agreements in front of jurors to try to tie Lay and Skilling to criminal acts of fraud and conspiracy.

The government's case got a boost last month when Enron's former chief accountant, Richard Causey, who was due to go on trial with Lay and Skilling, struck a deal that will send him to prison for seven years and likely put him in the witness stand.

I will bet that they both get off without serving any jail time. They both deserve to be hanged, IMHO.