Ex-Enron Execs Seek to Move Trial

Former Enron Corp. Chairman Kenneth L. Lay and former Chief Executive Jeffrey K. Skilling asked a federal court to move their trial out of Houston, arguing in a filing Monday that any jury in Enron’s hometown would be biased.

The former Enron executives have been compared to Satan, Al Qaeda, Adolf Hitler and O.J. Simpson in reports in the local media, including the city’s sole newspaper, the Houston Chronicle, according to court documents submitted by Skilling’s lead lawyer, Daniel Petrocelli.

“We respectfully submit that Jeffrey Skilling’s trial must be transferred to another metropolitan venue, such as Phoenix, Denver or Atlanta,” Petrocelli said in the filing.

Skilling faces trial on dozens of counts of fraud, insider trading and conspiracy connected to the energy company, which collapsed into bankruptcy protection in December 2001.

In a survey, nearly one in three Houston residents used negative statements to describe Skilling, about triple the percentage of negative comments from residents of the other cities, according to the filing.

Lay’s lawyers had originally sought a trial in front of a judge without a jury, but joined in the motion because prejudice against Lay in Houston was “so extensive, pervasive and profound,” according to his filing to U.S. District Judge Sim Lake.

Lay has been charged with conspiracy and fraud in the case, but also will face another trial on charges that he illegally used loans from banks to buy Enron stock.

The two will be tried along with former Chief Accounting Officer Richard A. Causey, who was expected to join the motion seeking a change of venue.

The collapse of Enron, once the nation’s seventh-largest company, cost thousands of Houstonians their jobs or pensions, hurt real estate prices and damaged local charities, according to Skilling’s filing.

Houston residents “have a personal, emotional and economic stake in this case resulting from Enron’s dramatic rise and fall,” the filing said.

Last week, a Houston jury found one former Enron mid-level executive and four former Merrill Lynch bankers guilty of conspiracy and fraud in the first criminal case connected to the bankruptcy energy company.

But that jury acquitted a former Enron accountant on the charges stemming from the fraudulent sale of three power producing barges in Nigeria from Enron to Merrill Lynch in 1999.