Washington - An Enron Corp unit's former chief executive
received a light sentence Monday but was also ordered to pay a heavy
fine of 15 million dollars to help compensate victims of the huge
corporate collapse.
A federal judge in Houston sentenced Kenneth Rice to 27 months in
prison for securities fraud linked to the energy-trading giant's 2001
bankruptcy, which exposed one of the biggest US corporate scandals.
He also ordered Rice to forfeit about 15 million dollars to be
paid to victims of the collapse, who included employees and other
shareholders, the US Justice Department said.
The sentence was relatively light compared to the 24 years in
prison meted out to former Enron chief executive Jeffrey Skilling in
October for his role in accounting fraud that brought down the
company.
Enron collapsed less than three months after the September 11,
2001, terrorist attacks, jolting already shaken US financial markets
and fuelling a government push to clean up corporate accounting
practices.
The collapse of the former pipeline company that grew under
Skilling's leadership into an energy-trading giant erased some 70
billion dollars in market value, cost at least 5,000 jobs and wiped
out employee pensions.
Rice, former head of Enron Broadband Services (EBS), cooperated
with the US government's investigation into Enron. He pleaded guilty
to the fraud charge on July 20, 2004.
Rice admitted that he and others made falsely optimistic public
statements about the company's fibre-optic technology and failed to
disclose a likely operating loss in 2001, sharply boosting Enron's
stock price, the Justice Department said.
Former chairman and CEO Kenneth Lay died in July 2006 at age 64, a
few weeks after being convicted in the case. The conviction was
dismissed after his death.
US prosecutors have brought criminal charges against 36 defendants
in Enron's collapse, including 25 former Enron employees. Eighteen
have pleaded guilty or were found guilty after trial.
A former pipeline company, Enron grew under Skilling's leadership
into an energy-trading giant.
Lay and Skilling denied wrongdoing and blamed the scandal on
former chief financial officer Andrew Fastow, who was sentenced to
six years in prison last September after a plea-bargain with
prosecutors.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
USA
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