Judge Moves Up Enron, Merrill Lynch Trial
asia.news.yahoo.com
Friday April 16, 8:18 AM
A judge was unsympathetic Thursday to defense lawyers for former executives from Merrill Lynch & Co. and Enron Corp. who sought to delay their trial on charges of pushing through a sham sale of Nigerian barges.
U.S. District Judge Ewing Werlein decided instead to move the trial up a week, changing the date for three former Merrill executives and two from Enron to June 7 instead of June 14.
The trial could mark the debut of former Enron finance chief Andrew Fastow as a prosecution witness. Fastow pleaded guilty in January to two counts of conspiracy, admitting to orchestrating schemes to manipulate Enron's finances while self-dealing to enrich himself on the side.
He is cooperating with prosecutors and eventually will serve 10 years in prison.
The defense lawyers said in court filings they need more time to review evidence of Fastow's corporate crimes to challenge his veracity as a witness if he testifies about his alleged collusion with their clients in the 1999 barge deal.
In addition, while prosecutors have handed over millions of pages of documents related to the transaction as required, many more have yet to be produced, defense attorneys say.
Fastow didn't admit guilt on the barge deal. But it is noted among another 96 charges of fraud, money laundering, insider trading and others that will be dismissed when Fastow is sentenced, assuming prosecutors are happy with his help.
"Given the staggering number of complex corporate crimes and bad acts Mr. Fastow likely committed while associated with Enron," the evidence that could be used against him could take weeks to investigate, defense lawyers said in court filings this month.
Prosecutors say Fastow played a central role in the barge deal.
The indictment alleges Enron, with Merrill's knowledge, booked a short-term $7 million investment from the brokerage as a $12 million profit from sale of Nigerian barges. Enron's previous efforts to find a buyer had failed and the energy company needed the sale to appear to have met earnings targets.
But prosecutors say it wasn't a genuine sale because Fastow promised Enron would buy back the barges within six months. In June 2000, one of several partnerships Fastow ran to do deals with Enron bought Merrill's interest in the barges for $7.5 million.
The former Merrill executives _ Robert Furst, Daniel Bayly, James A. Brown and William Fuhs _ are the first Wall Street bankers to face criminal charges in the aftermath of Enron's scandalous collapse in 2001.
They, along with former Enron finance executive Dan Boyle and former Enron in-house accountant Sheila Kahanek, are charged with conspiracy. Fuhs and Brown also are charged with lying to investigators by saying they knew nothing of the buyback guarantee.
Also Thursday, prosecutors asked Werlein to seal identifying information about jurors in the trial, a reaction to two newspapers that published the identity of a holdout juror in the recent mistrial of two former Tyco International executives.
The judge did not immediately rule on that request. |
