Potential Enron Jurors Quizzed
A judge overseeing the first criminal trial involving former Enron Corp. executives told prospective jurors Monday that he didn’t expect them to have “come out of some hole somewhere” and not know of the former energy-trading giant.
Those chosen for the panel will decide whether four former Merrill Lynch & Co. executives and two former mid-level Enron executives participated in the sham sale of electricity-producing Nigerian barges to the brokerage firm in 1999 to prop up Enron’s earnings.
Lawyers worked Monday to trim the 150-member pool to 12 jurors and four alternates.
U.S. District Judge Ewing Werlein told the prospective jurors that he expected they would at least have heard of Enron or the demise of Arthur Andersen, convicted two years ago of covering up for its accounting client.
When asked whether they had heard of the barge case, about 10 people in the jury pool raised their hands. Two said they were familiar with at least one of the lawyers in the case.
Questionnaires distributed to the potential jurors asked whether they had any ties to Enron, Merrill Lynch or Andersen, whether they or someone close to them had a financial interest in the companies and whether they were hurt by the collapse of Enron and Andersen.
None of the six defendants has the notoriety of Enron’s former top managers, such as founder Kenneth L. Lay and Chief Executive Jeffrey K. Skilling.
Prosecutors contend that Merrill Lynch’s hunger for lucrative banking business from Enron prompted the Merrill Lynch defendants to help push through the sham sale nearly two years before Enron crashed in scandal.
The defendants, who have pleaded not guilty, are Daniel Bayly, former chairman of investment banking for Merrill Lynch; Robert S. Furst, the former Enron relationship manager for Merrill Lynch; James A. Brown, former head of Merrill Lynch’s asset lease and finance group; William Fuhs, a former Merrill Lynch vice president; Dan Boyle, a former Enron finance executive ; and Sheila Kahanek, a former Enron staff accountant.
