Enron case manufactured, defense says

HOUSTON — The government bore down on Enron Corp. as it would the Mafia, intimidating top lieutenants into pointing fingers at their bosses because someone had to pay for crimes that preceded the company’s stunning collapse, the lawyer for former Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling said Tuesday.

“This was all manufactured after the fact,” Daniel Petrocelli declared in an impassioned plea for jurors to acquit his client of all 28 fraud and conspiracy counts against him. “Because it’s Enron. After all, somebody has to pay. It’s Enron.”

In a searing closing argument, Petrocelli sought to drive home the defense theme that neither Skilling nor Enron founder Kenneth Lay perpetuated an overarching fraud at the company because none existed.

But prosecutors, unable to dig up tangible proof, found mouthpieces in a string of ex-Enron executives “robbed of their free will,” who pleaded guilty to crimes they didn’t commit, Petrocelli said. He said fear of lengthy prison terms and expensive legal battles drove those witnesses to say whatever the government wanted them to in testimony against Lay and Skilling.

“That’s how they take down Mob kingpins,” Petrocelli said.

Lay lawyer Bruce Collins, the first of several attorneys on his legal team to address jurors, said his client has accepted “full responsibility” for Enron’s failure — but Lay committed no crimes.

Collins said another judge presiding over numerous Enron-related lawsuits in another courtroom will decide whether Lay is liable for losses suffered by investors after the company sought bankruptcy protection in December 2001.

The current jury’s job is to decide if he is guilty of the crimes alleged by the government.

Tuesday’s lengthy closing arguments were the last opportunities for the defendants’ lawyers to address the eight-woman, four-man panel. Prosecutors who made their closing arguments on Monday get one more chance in a rebuttal argument today. Then, jurors will begin deliberations in the case that began Jan. 30.