Enron’s Skilling Rejected by Top U.S. Court on Conviction

The United States Supreme Court refused to grant Jeffrey Skilling, the former chief executive officer who led the Enron Corp. accounting fraud, a second hearing.

The denial leaves Skilling right back where he was before justices said prosecutors used an improper legal theory to convict him at the Supreme Court in 2010. According to the federal appeals court, his 19-count conviction stands.

Skilling is serving his 24-year federal prison sentence after he and former Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay were found guilty of misleading investors about the financial condition of the company. Lay passed in 2006.

Enron, once the world’s largest energy trading company, was forced to file for bankruptcy in 2001 due to the accounting fraud. The fraud wiped out over 5,000 jobs and $60 billion in shareholder value.

According to the New Orleans –based appeals court, there was “overwhelming evidence that Skilling conspired to commit securities fraud.”