Legal Commentary

Another Enron Task Force alum rings the bell

By Tom Kirkendall

Fresh off his victory in the Joseph Naccio trial, former Enron Task Force prosecutor Cliff Stricklin is the latest former Enron Task Force prosecutor to land a cush job at a big firm. Sean Berkowitz and Andrew Weissmann, among other Task Force prosecutors, cashed in earlier.

The puff piece announcing Stricklin's new job left out a few details of his work with the Enron Task Force. Stricklin was one of the lead prosecutors during the first Enron Broadband trial in which the Task Force was caught eliciting false testimony from one of the Task Force's main witnesses (Ken Rice) and threatening two defense-friendly witnesses, Beth Stier and Lawrence Ciscon. During the trial, U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore angrily cut off Stricklin from further cross-examination of one of the defendants and rebuked him in open court when Stricklin violated one of the Judge's limine orders.

That trial -- which appeared to be a tap-in for the Task Force at the outset -- ended in a crushing defeat for the Task Force. Stricklin parleyed his work in the Broadband case into a role on the prosecution team in the Lay-Skilling trial, where he proceeded to give a lesson in what not to ask on re-direct. That performance led to his appointment as the lead prosecutor in the Naccio case.

So, as Jeff Skilling fights for freedom from what amounts to a barbaric life sentence and many other lives have been shattered by the work of the Enron Task Force, the folks who cut corners to achieve those results are doing quite well, thank you. Given the dismal track record and the dubious tactics of the Enron Task Force, it makes one wonder just what these big law firms would have offered up to former Task Force members if they had done a really good job?

Full post as published by Houston's Clear Thinkers on February 08, 2008 (boomark / email).