Prosecutors Ask Court To Uphold Skilling's Conviction

Prosecutors want to keep former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling behind bars, without retrying any part of his case, and did not give an inch in the reply they filed to Skilling's appeal today.

The Department of Justice filed a 218-page reply to the appeal of Skilling, who is serving a 24-year prison sentence in Minnesota on 19 convictions of conspiracy, securities fraud, insider trading and lying to auditors at Enron.

Skilling was found guilty by a Houston jury in 2006 and appealed his conviction to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in September. He argued that prosecutors sought to criminalize normal business practices and overreached in prosecutions relating to the fall of Enron.

Skilling's multi-faceted appeal included arguments that the government had a faulty theory in claiming Skilling denied Enron his "honest services," that the judge gave improper jury instructions, that the sentence is excessive and that the case should not have been tried in Houston, where the company imploded.

The Justice Department's fraud section disagreed with all those contentions in its response today, written by San Francisco-based prosecutor Douglas Wilson. The government argued that a court decision on "honest services" in another case does not mean Skilling's convictions should be reversed.

Skilling was tried with former Enron Chairman Ken Lay in part because they shared the conspiracy charge. Lay died six weeks after their four-month trial ended in convictions for both of them. Lay's record was later wiped clean.