Enron Judge Nixes Bid To Move Trial
Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling will go to trial in the scandal-ridden company's hometown of Houston, a judge has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Sim Lake issued an order late Monday denying the former executives' last-minute request to move the trial from Houston based on potential jurors' vitriolic statements about Lay and Skilling on questionnaires.
The judge said he wasn't persuaded by defense arguments that a fair jury can't be found in Houston because the questionnaire answers reveal inherent prejudice against Lay and Skilling.
Lake said questionnaires with unbiased answers and his intention to question the pool during jury selection next Monday "provide adequate safeguards to defendants and will result in the selection of a fair and impartial jury in this case."
He also denied defense requests that attorneys be allowed to question potential jurors individually and postpone the trial to send out a new round of questionnaires in light of a guilty plea by former chief accounting officer Richard Causey. Causey was supposed to have been tried alongside his former bosses.
Lake has rejected all those requests before. He has yet to rule on a separate, more recent defense request to postpone the trial.
A year ago he nixed the defense's first request to move the trial to Denver, Atlanta or Phoenix, noting that extensive pretrial publicity wasn't so inflammatory or pervasive that it would prevent a fair trial.
The renewed venue change request emerged from what the defense teams called a "rage of publicity" stemming from Causey's decision to cut a deal with prosecutors. The government opposed any move.
Skilling attorney Daniel Petrocelli and Lay attorney Michael Ramsey also were concerned about potential jurors' comments about their clients on questionnaires sent out last November in the first step of jury selection.
Some prospective jurors called Skilling "a high-class crook" and "cheater" who "would lie to his mother if it would further his cause." Comments about Lay included "the biggest lying crook of all" who "did a lot of injustice to a lot of good people."
The jury pool has been whittled to 164 from the original 400 who filled out questionnaires. Defense attorneys wanted to question potential jurors individually to ferret out hidden bias, but Lake has repeatedly said he will conduct overall questioning. If answers indicate a need to speak to individuals in the pool, attorneys can question them privately at the judge's bench, he has said.
Lake also has repeatedly said he expects a jury to be chosen in a day. If so, defense attorneys and prosecutors would present the panel with opening statements on Tuesday and Wednesday next week. Prosecutors have been allotted two hours for opening statements, while the combined defense teams have four hours.
Skilling faces 35 counts of fraud, conspiracy, insider trading and lying to auditors for allegedly conspiring to fool investors into believing a fragile Enron was healthy before the company went bankrupt in December 2001. Prosecutors intend to tell Lake at a hearing Thursday that the government will drop four wire fraud counts against Skilling that are related to Causey counts, so the former CEO will face 31 criminal counts.
Lay faces seven counts of fraud and conspiracy for allegedly perpetuating the public lies about Enron's health after Skilling resigned in August 2001.
Both have pleaded not guilty.
By Kristen Hays