Jury selection began Monday in the upcoming trial of five former Enron Corp. executives who are accused of lying to make the company’s fledgling broadband business appear successful. The former Enron Broadband Systems (EBS) employees face 170 counts of conspiracy, wire and securities fraud, insider trading and money laundering.

According to the indictment, three former executives are charged with making false claims about the success of the EBS network so that they could pump up the company’s stock and get rich by selling inflated shares. Two are charged with falsifying earnings for EBS to minimize its publicly reported losses.

The former EBS employees to be tried are Joe Hirko, former co-CEO; Scott Yeager, former senior vice president of business development; Rex Shelby, former senior vice president of engineering and operations; Kevin Howard, former vice president of finance; and Michael Krautz, former senior accounting director.

The EBS unit began as a communications unit in 1997. In 1999, Enron began touting the success of the unit, and said it would earn billions. Enron also struck an exclusive video-on-demand deal with Blockbuster Inc. to stream movies over the broadband network. However, EBS never made a profit. The Blockbuster deal also was canceled.

The trial is expected to last two months once the jury is seated.

Ninety-five potential jurors were questioned Monday. Among the group dismissed was a former Enron employee, another whose son-in-law once worked for EBS and one married to an FBI agency who may have participated in searching Enron’s offices. If 12 jurors and alternates cannot be found on Monday, U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore said she would call another 89 potential jurors on Tuesday.

In an unusual move, Gilmore granted lawyers for the prosecution and the defense an hour each to question the potential jurors. In federal court, the judge usually asks the questions, but Gilmore agreed to allow more questioning because of concern about possible bias against the bankrupt company.

The outcome of this trial is expected could be significant to the case of former CEO Jeffrey Skilling. Among the charges against him, Skilling was indicted on 30 charges that allege he knew EBS was not living up to the hype that he was promoting to financial analysts in earnings announcements. Currently, Skilling’s trial is scheduled for January 2006. He is scheduled to go to trial along with former Chairman Kenneth Lay and former chief accountant Richard Causey.

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