Ex-Enron executive gets prison term of 51/2 years

Richard A. Causey, the last of the top Enron Corp. executives to learn his punishment, was sentenced Wednesday to 5 1/2 years in prison for his role in one of the biggest corporate scandals in U.S. history.

Causey, the energy trading company’s former chief accounting officer, pleaded guilty in December to securities fraud two weeks before he was to be tried along with Enron founder Kenneth L. Lay and former Chief Executive Jeffrey K. Skilling on conspiracy, fraud and other charges.

“There were improper things done at Enron. Some of those things were done by me. For that, I’m sorry,” Causey said before U.S. District Judge Sim Lake sentenced him. “As God is my witness, I never did anything intentionally to enrich myself or hurt the company or its employees.”

After Causey, 46, serves his five years, six months in prison, he will have to serve two years’ probation and pay a $25,000 fine that will be distributed to Enron’s victims.

Causey had already agreed to pay $1.25 million to the victims’ funds and had forfeited a claim to about $250,000 in deferred compensation.

“I’m confident you will come out and be a credit to your family,” Lake told Causey.

The maximum penalty for securities fraud is 10 years in prison and a fine of $1 million or twice the amount illegally gained.

Causey’s sentencing came less than a month after ex-CEO Skilling was sentenced to more than 24 years in prison.

It also came a week after Andrew S. Fastow, Enron’s former chief financial officer, was sentenced to six years. Fastow had testified against Skilling and Lay, who were convicted in May of conspiracy and fraud. Lay’s convictions were wiped out with his July death from heart disease.

Prosecutor Kathryn Ruemmler said the government could only recommend a modest reduction in sentence for Causey, who did not testify in the Lay-Skilling trial, though he was on the defense witness list.

“Mr. Causey bore tremendous responsibility to Enron employees and investors,” she said. “And he abrogated that responsibility and that caused harm to thousands of employees and investors.”

Reid Weingarten, Causey’s defense attorney, argued that his client’s guilty plea greatly simplified the government’s case against Lay and Skilling because it laid out complicated details about how the company kept its books.

Weingarten also told Lake it would be unfair if Causey was sentenced to more time than Fastow, who just began serving six years in a federal prison in Louisiana.

Causey’s wife and children cried after the sentence was announced.

Causey will remain free on bond until he has to report to prison in four to six weeks.

Still to be sentenced Friday are Mark E. Koenig, Enron’s former investor relations director, and Michael J. Kopper, an Enron managing director and Fastow’s once-trusted top aide.