Ex-Treasurer of Enron Is Sentenced to 5 Years in
Prison
Wed Sep 10, 2:57 PM ET
story.news.yahoo.com
By KENNETH N. GILPIN The New York Times
Ben F. Glisan Jr., the former treasurer of the Enron Corporation, pleaded
guilty this morning to a federal charge that he committed securities and
wire fraud. He becomes the highest-ranking former Enron executive to
admit wrongdoing in the accounting scandal that drove the energy
company into bankruptcy.
Mr. Glisan had earlier pleaded innocent to
multiple charges of money laundering, wire
fraud and conspiracy as part of a 109-count
indictment filed against Andrew S. Fastow,
Enron's former chief financial officer and Mr.
Glisan's former boss.
In an appearance in United States District
Court in Houston, Mr. Glisan pleaded guilty to
a single charge of conspiracy.
He was then sentenced by Judge Kenneth
Hoyt to serve five years in prison, the
maximum term for the charge. He was
immediately taken into custody.
Twenty-three other counts against Mr. Glisan
were dismissed. He also agreed to forfeit
nearly $1 million in profits from a partnership
investment related to Enron and agreed not to
seek a refund of $412,000 in taxes he paid on
that profit.
After roughly 18 months of investigation and
indictments of 19 former officials, federal
prosecutors are reported to be ratcheting up
their efforts to determine if Enron's top two
former officials, Kenneth L. Lay and Jeffrey K.
Skilling, should face criminal charges.
Mr. Lay and Mr. Skilling have consistently
denied any wrongdoing.
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this
week that investigators have been focusing
hard on Mr. Skilling. Prosecutors believe they
are closer to compiling enough evidence
against him to file criminal charges than they
are against Mr. Lay, The Journal reported.
It is not at all clear that Mr. Glisan will be of
much help in the effort to determine if either
Mr. Skilling or Mr. Lay should be indicted.
Federal prosecutors said this morning that
Mr. Glisan is not cooperating with them in
their investigation.
"We were never banking on him cooperating with us," Leslie Caldwell,
head of the Justice Department's Enron Task Force,
told The Associated Press.
But "the fact that he now admitted he created a fraudulent way for Enron
to hide things off its books I think will send a somewhat chilling message
to other people," Ms. Caldwell said.
Ms. Caldwell, who had been running the government's investigation out of
Washington, has recently moved to Houston, where Enron was based
and where a federal grand jury is hearing evidence in the investigation.
Mr. Glisan, 37, is the second former Enron official to plead guilty.
Michael J. Kopper, one of Mr. Fastow's former top aides, pleaded guilty
in August 2002 to money laundering and conspiracy. As part of his plea,
Mr. Kopper agreed to cooperate in the federal investigation.
Just last week, Judge Hoyt ruled that Mr. Fastow would be tried
separately from Mr. Glisan and Dan Boyle, a former Enron finance
executive who was also named in the 109-count indictment filed
principally against Mr. Fastow.
When he separated the cases, Judge Hoyt said the split was partly
because of the disproportionately large number of counts filed against
Mr. Fastow compared to his co-defendants.
Mr. Fastow's trial is scheduled to begin on April 20. Mr. Boyle's trial date
is Aug. 17. And Mr. Glisan's trial would have begun on July 20.
Mr. Fastow, who is accused of masterminding schemes and
partnerships to enrich himself, his family and others, has pleaded
innocent to fraud, money laundering, insider trading and other charges.
Mr. Boyle has pleaded innocent to two counts of
conspiracy.
Early last year Mr. Glisan and his lawyers tried to
reach a deal with prosecutors and avoid prosecution
by telling what he knows about Enron's accounting
practices.
Mr. Glisan was fired from his position at Enron in
November 2001, less than a month before the
company went bankrupt. He was dismissed after an
internal investigation showed he had gained $1
million from a $5,800 investment in one of the
complex partnership deals that are at the core of the
government's investigation into the accounting fraud
that brought Enron down.
Enron filed for bankruptcy after writing off $1 billion
in failed investments and admitting that it had
hidden $1.2 billion in losses in off-the-books
partnerships. At the time, the Chapter 11 filing was
the largest bankruptcy on record. |
