U.S. District Judge Sim Lake re-sentenced former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling to 14 years in prison yesterday. That was the most lenient sentence that Judge Lake could impose under the deal that Skilling cut with the Department of Justice without risking a government appeal of the sentence.
Skilling has already served almost seven years in prison and that he has to spend another day in prison — much less the four more years that Judge Lake’s re-sentence imposes — is highly unjust.
In the letter below that I sent a couple of weeks before Skilling’s resentencing hearing, I explain to Judge Lake why I believe that Skilling’s plight is a grave injustice and why releasing him would actually have a beneficial impact on educating business markets.
Tom Kirkendall Letter to U.S. Judge Sim Lake Regarding the Resentencing of Jeff Skilling by Tom Kirkendall
Thank you for being a lonely voice in the woods for all these years on the Enron prosecution. It’s about time that someone pointed out that people who lost their nest eggs were being imprudent in their decision making. I do wish there was a public vetting of the allegations of prosecutorial misconduct – yes, I’m talking about you, Enron Task Force members. It is troubling how a number of the Enron prosecutors have used their “work” as a springboard for their careers, even as a number of those prosecutions were overturned. Talk about a double standard…one for business people and another for prosecutors.
Nicely done Tom.
As you may know, I tried to disclose the big global energy’s sector picture for a second time, in vain.
“between the two of us, I decide whether you’re an Enron victim or not” Judge Lake posited.
Sad enough, there was no room to let the public know how Skilling was demonized by the prosecutors for personal gain*) and in order to hide the big global picture of specific direction of systemic joint criminal enterprise leadby the energy sector’s Number One. ExxonMobil, as I laid out in my request to be heard on resentencing day – which was totally ignored and my certified mail from Europe not even answered.
What all of you have seen was the Exxon culture, not just the Enron culture.
I got a slight chance to hint at the world’s largest public-private partnership constriction for 50 years (since 1963) – the global seizure of the globalization trend by Exxon (Esso) imposing technology advantage on the other partners Royal Dutch Shell and the Dutch government, by naming Bechtel as a common business partner of Dutch Gasunie and Enron, who were like Halliburton, Schlumberger and the like, all feeders for Exxon.
How can somebody not be an Enron victim when the company was the globe’s biggest energy trader?
*) I disclosed this matter pre-trial in a conference with federal prosecutor Clif Stricklin.
My related citizen’s complaint against Lee Raymond (chair and ceo of Exxon at the time and now lead director of JP Morgan -owner of the Fed!) and George W. Bush was reviewed by the FBI special agent and head of the Enron Task Force, Michael E. Anderson during the trial.
Everybody knows that the head Federal prosecutor Sean Berkowitz was hired for double pay by a Chicago law office, the same sentencing day back in 2006.
Please learn to understand more of global PPP crime on pollutico.com
Stephan Tychon
2002 World Stability Council
Well done, Tom