Business in brief: Enron’s Causey begins sentence
Former Enron Corp. executive Richard Causey has reported to prison to begin serving 5 1/2 years for his role in the company’s scandalous collapse, his attorney and prison officials said Wednesday.
Causey, who turns 47 next week, reported Tuesday to the Bastrop Federal Correctional Institution, a low- and minimum-security prison about 30 miles southeast of Austin. Bob Mace, one of Causey’s attorneys, said he and Causey’s wife, Elizabeth, accompanied him to the prison. Causey’s two children, 18 and 20 years old, were not present.
Mace would not discuss other details about the event.
Causey, Enron’s former chief accounting officer, pleaded guilty to securities fraud in 2005 shortly before he was scheduled to be tried with Enron founder Kenneth Lay and former chief executive Jeffrey Skilling on conspiracy, fraud and other charges related to the company’s collapse. Causey admitted that he and other senior Enron managers made various false public findings and statements.
The Bastrop prison holds 1,371 inmates who can earn from 12 cents to 40 cents an hour working at jobs such as food service or as an inmate orderly, plumber, painter or groundskeeper.
Atlanta
Coca-Cola fights records request
The Coca-Cola Co. sought Wednesday to block a defense lawyer’s request for documents in a trade secrets theft case that relate to products the world’s largest beverage maker developed but never launched.
The Atlanta-based company filed a motion in federal court to quash a subpoena by Joya Williams’ lawyer for the documents in preparation for Williams’ Jan. 16 trial. Williams is charged with conspiring to steal trade secrets from Coca-Cola in an effort to sell them to rival Pepsi.
Two co-defendants have already pleaded guilty in the case, and at least one is expected to testify against Williams, a former Coca-Cola secretary who worked for the company’s global brand director at its headquarters.
According to the motion, Williams’ lawyer, Janice Singer, has subpoenaed 19 categories of records from Coca-Cola.
The company is objecting to production of two of the categories: documents reflecting all products Coca-Cola developed or which were in development but didn’t launch within the last three years; and documents reflecting all marketing strategies formulated by or for Coca-Cola that were termed confidential or secret but were not used in the last three years.
Post Falls
Chamber looking for new president
The Post Falls Chamber of Commerce is beginning the search for a new president/CEO after accepting the resignation of Angela Alexander.
Alexander, who spent two years as the chamber’s president/CEO, resigned effective Dec. 31. Details surrounding her resignation weren’t forthcoming. No announcement of an interim director is being made at this time, said Eric English, chairman of the chamber’s board of directors.
The chamber has about 450 members.