You wouldn’t know of it from the (lack of) media coverage, but the head prosecutor of the Enron task force resigned last month after charges of prosecutoral misconduct:

Although the contents of the ex parte motion is a closely-guarded secret of the defense teams of Messrs. Lay, Skilling and Causey, speculation is rampant among Houston attorneys involved in the Enron case that the defendants had provided Judge Lake with compelling evidence that the Enron Task Force was threatening potential defense witnesses in the Lay-Skilling-Causey trial with criminal charges that could result in long prison sentences if the witnesses testified on behalf of the defendants. In a separate recent court filing, the Skilling defense team observed that “[t]he Task Force has taken control of the witnesses in this case to an unprecedented and impermissible degree. Witnesses will not meet or speak with us for fear of reprisal.”

While there’s no question in my mind that there was some significant criminal mischief going on among Enron execs, there’s also no question that the backlash is ensnaring other executives who either did nothing wrong, or are getting charged with crimes wholly out of proportion with their transgressions.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 2nd, 2005 at 3:57 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.