Enron Case Gets Second Grand Jury

A second special grand jury has been seated in the Justice Department’s continuing investigation of Enron Corp.’s 2001 collapse.

The grand jury that had been investigating Enron finished its second 18-month term last week, and a new panel was seated for another 18 months, the Houston Chronicle reported Tuesday.

Prosecutors told a judge last week that they didn’t intend to add defendants to a pending indictment against Enron founder Kenneth L. Lay, former Chief Executive Jeffrey K. Skilling and former top accountant Richard A. Causey, who are scheduled to go to trial in January.

But a lawyer representing several potential witnesses said more people could be indicted in separate cases.

“With the big [Lay] trial so far away, they can run out leads and possibly indict others,” Philip Hilder said.

Andrew Weissmann, head of the Justice Department’s Enron Task Force, would not comment.

Separately, five former executives from Enron’s defunct broadband unit are expected to go on trial April 18. They are accused of faking earnings and inflating Enron’s stock price with false hype.

Also, three former London bankers are fighting extradition on wire fraud charges related to a deal allegedly engineered by former Enron finance chief Andrew S. Fastow.

Skilling and Causey each face more than 30 counts, including conspiracy, fraud and insider trading, for their alleged roles in schemes to fool investors into believing that Enron was financially healthy in the years leading to its crash. Lay is charged with continuing the ruse after Skilling quit Enron in August 2001. All three have pleaded not guilty.