With its focus turning to the courtroom, the Enron Task Force will get its third director since being created in early 2002. Sean Berkowitz, a former prosecutor in the Chicago U.S. Attorney's Office, will take over as director from original task force member Andrew Weissman.
Berkowitz joined the task force in late 2003, after working in Chicago's criminal division for five years. A Harvard Law School graduate, he is already part of the prosecutorial team that will make the case against Enron founder Ken Lay and former chief executive Jeff Skilling in January 2006. Prosecutor Kathryn Ruemmler, who also joined the task force in 2003 and is assigned to the January trial, will serve as assistant director.
Weissmann was the longest-serving member of the force, and was assistant director under Leslie Caldwell before taking over as director in March 2004. He will assist in the transition and stay at the Justice Department for a number of weeks, before reportedly returning to private practice.
Two other new prosecutors also joined the task force this summer -- Robb Adkins, an assistant U.S. attorney in the Central District of California, and, Leo Wise, formerly an attorney on the tobacco litigation task force in Washington, D.C. The task force is a team of federal prosecutors within the Justice Department's Criminal Division, as well as agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigations Division. Part of the President's Corporate Fraud Task Force, the group has charged 34 defendants, including 25 former Enron executives.
