When former Enron treasurer and Andy Fastow henchman Ben Glisan cut his plea deal with the Enron Task Force in September, 2003, he did not — unlike most other Enron plea bargainers — enter into a cooperation agreement that required him to cooperate with the Task Force in other Enron-related prosecutions.

Interestingly, in connection with Glisan’s plea deal, U.S. District Judge Ken Hoyt recommended that Glisan be assigned to a more-favored minimum-security camp.

However, the Bureau of Prisons assigned Glisan to the Bastrop, Texas prison facility, which was contrary to Judge Hoyt’s recommendation that Glisan be assigned to the less-restrictive camp. Glisan reportedly was miffed with the BOP’s assignment.

Nevertheless, during the previous Enron-related Nigerian Barge case in Sept.-Nov., 2004, Glisan was the key prosecution witness. Because he has no cooperation agreement, Glisan testified in that trial — as he is currently doing in the Lay-Skilling trial — under a grant of use immunity so that his testimony cannot be used against him in another prosecution.

Accordingly, the Task Force presented Glisan during the Nigerian Barge trial as a witness who was being “forced” to testify under the immunity grant and who had no deal with the Task Force to get a lighter sentence in return for his testimony. Indeed, the prosecutors touted Glisan during the barge trial as a witness who was more credible than the typical prosecution witness who had cut a deal for a reduced sentence under a cooperation agreement with the prosecution.

Well, in a startling revelation during Glisan’s direct examination in the Lay-Skilling trial yesterday, it appears that the Task Force’s presentation of Glisan as a non-cooperating witness during the Nigerian Barge trial was a sham.

A letter introduced into evidence yesterday sets forth the terms of the cooperation agreement between Glisan and the Task Force. In return for Glisan’s cooperation in other Enron-related cases, the Task Force arranged Glisan’s transfer to his favored Beaumont, Texas minimum-security camp (from the his disfavored Bastrop, Tx. prison facility) and helped Glisan shave a year off of his five-year prison sentence by facilitating his involvement in a prison alcohol-rehab program.

As a result of the deal, Glisan is now scheduled to complete his five-year prison sentence in January, 2007 and will be released to home confinement in September.

Moreover, although the letter between the Task Force and Glisan’s suggests that Glisan’s lawyer had proposed “the deal” in early 2005 after the completion of the Nigerian Barge case in November, 2004, it’s clear that Glisan and the Task Force were negotiating the deal well before the trial of the Nigerian Barge case.

The final paragraph of a June 1, 2004 from the Task Force to the defense counsel in the Nigerian Barge case contains the following statement about Glisan’s negotiations with the Task Force:

In May, 2004, Glisan, through his counsel, requested that the government support his request to be transferred to a minimum security camp in Beaumont, Texas. The government responded to Glisan’s attorney as follows: the government will not weigh in on BOP’s decision to designate Glisan to a particular facility; that is a matter for BOP. However, if BOP inquired, the government would advise BOP of the government’s assessment of Glisan’s truthfulness in [the Nigerian Barge case].

Contrary to the foregoing statement, it now appears clear that the prosecution did weigh in on Glisan’s transfer to the Beaumont facility, in addition to helping Glisan shave a year off of his sentence.

Moreover, contrary to the suggestion in the June 1 letter that the BOP is independent of the Task Force, the September 30 Task Force letter exposes that the BOP is, in fact, a cooperating agency with the Task Force (the BOP’s Houston office is on the same floor of the federal courthouse as the Task Force’s offices).

Does anyone really believe that Glisan’s original assignment to the more restrictive Bastrop prison facility was the result of “administrative necessity?”

Or that the assignments of Nigerian Barge defendants Dan Bayly and William Fuhs to more-restrictive facilities far away from their families was not the product of Task Force intervention with the BOP?

Remember, Task Force prosecutors were clearly upset with U.S. District Judge Ewing Werlein’s refusal to accept their draconian recommendation regarding the length of the prison sentences for the four Merrill Lynch defendants convicted in the barge case.

Glisan’s testimony helped place four Merrill Lynch executives in prison for doing their jobs in connection with the firm’s purchase of a dividend stream for which Enron, not Merrill, may have improperly accounted, although even that issue was never proven during the barge trial.

Now it appears that the true motivation for Glisan’s testimony during that trial was not disclosed to either the defense or the jury.

Chalk it up as yet another example of the lengths that prosecutors must go to justify the criminalization of the unpopular businesspersons of the moment in the post-Enron era.