A federal court in Houston handed prison sentences Friday to two former Enron officials who had cooperated with prosecutors investigating one of the largest corporate fraud cases in US history. Michael Kopper, once a managing director at Enron, received a term of three years and one month, while Mark Koenig, the company's former director of investor relations, was sentenced to 18 months.
Kopper had pleaded guilty in 2002 to conspiracy and money laundering, admitting he worked with other executives to deceive the company and its shareholders through a web of fictitious entities. Koenig pleaded guilty in 2004 to helping produce false and misleading statements about the performance of two core Enron business units. Both men were also fined 50,000 dollars each and together forfeited 13.5 million dollars.
The sentences are far shorter than the 24-year term given to former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling. Co-conspirator and company founder Kenneth Lay was convicted alongside Skilling earlier in 2006 but died of a heart attack in July before sentencing.
Enron collapsed in late 2001, wiping out thousands of jobs and employees' retirement savings. Prosecutors alleged that Skilling and Lay used off-book partnerships to inflate the company's reported profits while personally collecting hundreds of millions of dollars.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this wire report, first published in November 2006, in its own words.