Saturday, March 15, 2008

Prosecutorial bad stuff going on?

Why, would they do that? From past knowledge, oh HELL yes.
Which brings up the rumblings that Tom Kirkendall is reporting on concerning the Enron trial. This is part of a pattern of possible misconduct Tom has been discussing for sometime. Part of the problem is that Enron prosecutors gave Skilling's lawyers only a composite summary of what Andy Fastow told the FBI. The prosecutors said that was ok because the interviews contained no exculpatory information. Yet Fastow's trial testimony was full of the sort of inconsistences that cast doubt on his credibility (see, e.g., this post). Was this stuff in the FBI reports?

Well, it seems not:

The brief reveals suppression of exculpatory evidence by the Enron Task Force of a massive scale. The entire brief is devastating to the Task Force's prosecution of Skilling and the late Enron chairman, Ken Lay. * * *

The implications of this brief reach far beyond the Skilling appeal. For example, the already-reeling prosecution of the four Merrill Lynch bankers in the Enron-related Nigerian Barge case would appear to be over -- the prosecution in that case not only withheld exculpatory evidence, but put on incriminating testimony from former Enron treasurer Ben Glisan that directly contradicted the exculpatory evidence that Fastow provided to Task Force prosecutors during his interviews. Other Enron-related criminal cases -- as well as plea bargains -- could well be affected.

Just freakin' wonderful, isn't it?

And, as the guy says, "...I'm still waiting for this to capture the attention of the press, which had been so rivited on Fastow's testimony at the trial." Of course, at the trial they got to cheer on hanging a Big Corporate Guy, whereas if they take note of this they'll have to at least talk about hanging the prosecutors for breaking the law so as to go after the BCG.

No comments: