U.S. District Judge Sim Lake ruled Thursday afternoon that bank-fraud charges against Enron former chairman and CEO Ken Lay would be tried to him without a jury early next year immediately following the multi-defendant conspiracy jury trial against Mr. Lay, which is scheduled to begin in mid-January, 2006. Judge Lake had previously severed the bank-fraud charges against Mr. Lay from the conspiracy and securities fraud case against Mr. Lay and co-defendants Jeff Skilling, Enron’s former CEO and COO, and Richard Causey, Enron’s former chief accounting officer. The government had been seeking to try Mr. Lay on the bank-fraud charges — which will not take as long to try as the larger multi-defendant case — later this summer. Earlier posts on this particular issue relating to Mr. Lay’s case can be reviewed here, here, here and here.
Although Judge Lake indicated during the hearing that he preferred to go ahead and get the bank fraud trial out of the way, he decided that such an early trial could cause a flurry of publicity that could negatively affect the jury pool for the trial of the larger conspiracy and securities fraud case that will begin in January.
Meanwhile, Banjo Jones speculates on what Tony Curtis and Mr. Lay talked about at a recent party.