With their sentencing dates approaching, former Enron chief executive Jeffrey Skilling and former chief financial officer Andrew Fastow are taking divergent routes in the image they portray to the court. Skilling, 52, was ticketed for public intoxication earlier this month in Dallas, according to a report in the Houston Chronicle. The paper said that Skilling, who was not drinking at the time of the arrest, received a $385 ticket on Sept. 9 at about 1:45 a.m. and was briefly detained in a city jail. Public intoxication is a misdemeanor and punishable by a fine of up to $500.
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Skilling was convicted in May on 19 counts of fraud, conspiracy, insider trading and lying to auditors in the investigation following Enron’s collapse. He faces 20 to 30 years in prison for the charges and is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 23. According to his lawyers, his arrest was reported to pretrial services the day after it occurred, and he apparently will not go to jail early for violating terms of his $5 million bond. The court did require Skilling to increase the frequency of his visits with mental health and alcohol treatment counselors. Meanwhile, lawyers for Fastow are lobbying for leniency in advance of his sentencing on conspiracy charges next week. Fastow pleaded guilty to two conspiracy charges in January 2004, agreeing to a 10-year maximum prison sentence in exchange for testifying against Skilling and the company’s late founder, Kenneth Lay. Papers filed at court document how over the past two years, Fastow, 44, has helped victims of Hurricane Katrina and volunteered with Meals on Wheels and at his synagogue, where he has taught classes, built a playground and picnic table, and mowed the lawn.
