Former Enron Corp. chief accounting officer Richard Causey was sentenced to serve 66 months in prison for signing off on the bookkeeping that led to the company's historic bankruptcy.
Causey, 46, was the last of Enron’s top executives to be sentenced. He had pleaded guilty in December to securities fraud, striking a deal with prosecutors shortly before he was to be tried along with Enron founder Kenneth Lay and former Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling on conspiracy, fraud and other charges related to the company's collapse.
Skilling and Lay were convicted in May on those conspiracy and fraud charges. While Lay's convictions were vacated following his July death from a heart attack, Skilling was sentenced to more than 24 years in jail last month.
Former Enron chief financial officer Andrew Fastow was sentenced in September to a reduced sentence of six years. Later this week, , Mark Koenig, Enron's former investor relations director, and Michael Kopper, an Enron managing director and Mr. Fastow's once-trusted top aide, were set to be sentenced.
As part of the original deal, Causey also agreed to pay $1.25 million to the government, forfeit a claim to about $250,000 in deferred compensation and serve seven years in prison, which prosecutors could recommend be reduced to five if they were pleased with his cooperation. He never ended up testifying in the trial, though unlike other Enron defendants, Causey didn't skim millions of dollars for himself.
