Remember Kevin Hannon? He is the former Enron Broadband executive whose testimony was the subject of this earlier post on the risk for the Enron Task Force of attempting to score points with the jury by eliciting seemingly helpful testimony about a statement that Skilling allegedly made (“they’re on to us”) that, upon reflection, actually turns out to be contrary to the Task Force’s case.
Well, based on this Lay-Skilling motion filed this past Friday, the Task Force’s attempt at a cheap score may have an even more negative effect on the Enron Task Force’s case against Lay and Skilling than first thought. According to the motion, the Task Force apparently has not turned over to the Lay-Skilling team other witness statements team regarding the “they’re on to us” statement that Hannon contends that Skilling made.
Prior to Hannon’s testimony, at least a couple of other prosecution witnesses previously testified that they were at the same meeting in which Hannon alleges that Skilling made the statement. However, no other prosecution witness has testified that Skilling made any such statement. Accordingly, the Lay-Skilling team points out that the prosecution witnesses’ pre-trial statements that they did not remember such a statement from Skilling would be potentially exculpatory to Skilling and Lay, thus, should have been turned over by the prosecution to the defense. Moreover, given that the Task Force placed such emphasis on Hannon’s allegation regarding the alleged Skilling statement, the Lay-Skilling team observes that it’s highly unlikely that the Task Force didn’t at least ask its other witnesses who attended the meeting about the alleged statement.
Meanwhile, as the Task Force’s case winds down, the NY Times’ Alexei Barrionuevo previews the upcoming week’s testimony, which includes a couple of former Arthur Andersen accountants and former Enron treasurer and Andy Fastow protege, Ben Glisan.