Founder

Former Enron Corp. CEO Jeffrey Skilling told top executives, including founder Kenneth Lay, “they’re on to us,” after reviewing an investment boutique’s research note that was critical of Enron’s special purpose entities (SPEs) run by then-CFO Andrew Fastow, a witness testified Thursday. Fastow, potentially the star witness in the trial of Skilling and Lay, is expected to take the stand this week in Houston.

On a day devoted to cross examination of prosecution witnesses in the trial of Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay and ex-CEO Jeffrey Skilling, two of the company’s top executives maintained Skilling and others lied repeatedly to cover up financial shenanigans within some of the business units.

In some of the most damaging testimony so far in the trial of Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay and ex-CEO Jeffrey Skilling, David Delainey, who once headed the wholesale gas trading unit, testified Tuesday the company played “fast and loose” with accounting rules, and financial tricks were “standard operating procedure.

Defense lawyers on Thursday tried to chip away at the credibility of Paula Rieker, Enron Corp.’s former corporate secretary, as the trial of Enron founder Kenneth Lay and ex-CEO Jeffrey Skilling ended its fourth week. Despite a day-long grilling by the defense team, Rieker remained composed, carefully answering questions and correcting remarks she thought were misleading. The trial resumes on Monday in U.S. District Court in Houston.

The trial of Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay and ex-CEO Jeffrey Skilling moves into its fourth week on Tuesday, and while it has at times been dull and colorless, the pace picked up last week following a stern request by U.S. District Judge Sim Lake to hear “questions” and not just “statements” by the trial lawyers.

The trial of Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling is only three weeks old, but Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Sim Lake attempted to speed things along. Defense attorneys last week played nearly eight hours of video and audio recordings of Enron webcasts and analysts conference calls in an attempt to show the jury “context.” However, when another tape was introduced as evidence Wednesday, Lake appeared to have heard enough.

The defense team for Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling continued its attack against the prosecution’s lead witness last week, with former investor relations chief Mark Koenig spending the entire week on the witness stand in Houston. In testimony that was at times emotional and often tedious, the defense attempted to prove Koenig is wrong in his assertions that Lay and Skilling lied to investors and financial analysts about the state of affairs at the once mighty company.

The two-man defense team representing Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling grilled the company’s ex-investor relations chief for the sixth day in a row Thursday, attempting to lay the groundwork to prove their clients did nothing illegal in the months preceding the company’s bankruptcy.

Jurors in the trial of Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling were given a behind-the-scenes peek into the once mighty company on Wednesday, as the defense offered hours of audio and videotape from financial presentations and employee webcasts, some of which mixed business presentations with self-congratulatory pep rallies.