Retrial Starts for Broadband Unit Executives

The first of three retrials of five former Enron Corp. broadband executives began Wednesday with a prosecutor telling the jury that it was a case about fraud and deception and the defense saying that no crimes were committed.

It was the government’s second effort to seek fraud and conspiracy convictions against former Enron broadband unit finance chief Kevin A. Howard and in-house accountant Michael W. Krautz. The first trial ended last year with a hung jury.

Howard and Krautz first went on trial alongside three other higher-level broadband executives in April 2005.

The government says Howard and Krautz broke accounting rules with “Project Braveheart,” an alleged loan disguised as a sale of future revenue from a video-on-demand deal to investors so the broadband unit could book immediate income in the fourth quarter of 2000. That revenue never came because the video-on-demand venture never got off the ground.

Lawyers for Howard and Krautz countered that a buyout promise was discussed as Braveheart was structured, but it was not part of the final deal because it would have broken accounting rules.

The trial of the five executives last year ended inconclusively in July. They had faced a total of 202 charges. The trial produced 24 acquittals and mistrials on the rest.