By now, Houstonians are surely aware of the outcome in the Enron broadband trial, which resulted in no convictions. The Chronicle‘s Mary Flood reports:
Three months after the Enron Internet fraud trial began, prosecutors failed Wednesday to win a single conviction against any of the five defendants.
After deliberating less than 24 hours over four days, a Houston federal court jury acquitted three of the men on some charges and deadlocked on most of the Enron Broadband Services case.
The five men faced various charges relating to their roles in allegedly misleading investors regarding the success of the Internet venture.
It’s the second blow in less than two months for the Enron Task Force: The U.S. Supreme Court earlier overturned the obstruction of justice conviction against the Arthur Andersen accounting firm.
On Wednesday, jurors declared themselves deadlocked on many charges and prosecutors asked the judge to order them to keep trying. U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore refused to do so, and declared a mistrial on the dozens of counts on which the jury could not agree.
Although some local bloggers admitted surprise at the verdict, local attorney and blogger Tom Kirkendall did not. Having blogged about the prosecution’s missteps as the trial progressed, he has long argued that the prosecution’s case was far more appealing emotionally and politically than legally.
Kirkendall’s latest post on the topic is an excellent summary of what went wrong for the prosecution, and draws considerably from his prior posts. It’s an excellent introduction to Kirkendall’s blog for anybody not yet acquainted with it, and another example why Kirkendall is our favorite blogger on local business and law.
