David Delainey, former CEO of Enron Energy Services, was sentenced on Monday to 2 and a half year in the pokey in connection with his plea deal in which he pled guilty to insider trading charges and sang like a canary for the prosecution during the criminal trial of former key Enron executives Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling.
Delainey went over-the-top in his testimony against Lay and Skilling, so the Enron Task Force didn’t oppose a lenient sentence for him. Moreover, Delainey’s counsel requested a probated sentence from US District Judge Kenneth Hoyt, who is generally considered a relatively light sentencing judge. As a result, it was expected in the local legal community that Delainey would probably receive a similar sentence to that of Timothy DeSpain.
However, Delainey’s desire to placate prosecutors appears to have backfired as Judge Hoyt commented during the sentencing hearing that his criminal conduct was “a lot deeper and a lot wider, . . . than is expressed in this charge.” Thus, the length of the sentence — and particularly the fact that Delainey was hauled off to jail straight from the courtroom — is mildly surprising. It is also tragic in that Delainey’s testimony during the Lay-Skilling trial was not particularly credible. My sense is that he agreed to the plea bargain solely to hedge the risk of a longer prison sentence on the charges.
By the way, this Kristen Hays/Chronicle article outlines the sentencing schedule for former Enron executives in the upcoming months.