I’m reading some of the Official Record of the EBS trial, and I found a certain motion by the government arguing against Yeager and Hirko’s motion for a summary judgement of acquittal (Shelby did not jointly file with the motion.) As I’m browsing along, I found this and it jumped out at me [I've taken a screenshot because I don't want to be accused of taking anything out of context.]
So, according to the United States government, Ken Rice joined a conspiracy already in progress, ostensibly among Joe Hirko, his co-CEO, Scott Yeager, Rex Shelby, and also, in a different sector of the same company, Michael Krautz and Kevin Howard. Joe Hirko, the Boy Scout with a record of prudent business practices, Scott Yeager who didn’t give a crap about anything but technology, and Rex Shelby, an entrepreneur who sold his company to Enron, were already involved in a conspiracy. There is a problem with this, as I’ve demonstrated many times. They weren’t friends. They didn’t know each other outside of work. A conspiracy only works if you trust the guys you’re conspiring with. They never even had a beer together outside of work.
Okay, whatever, the gov alleges that they’re all involved in some nefarious plot. Then Ken Rice shows up. Ken RICE! The very best friend of the company’s CEO! Did they invite him in? If they did, why didn’t Ken Rice tell Jeff Skilling what was happening? The government alleges that Ken Rice was also misbehaving before he got to EBS. How lucky does this bastard have to be to go from one conspiracy, in Corporate, only to discover – hold on to your hat – that there’s another conspiracy almost exactly like the one in Corporate happening in EBS! Either Ken Rice was the luckiest man alive, or the government is just full of crap because real life doesn’t work that way.
This is a small thing, but these small things add up. These documents mean something and since the government won’t actually be accountable for its blather that it passes off as some sort of conspiracy among ordinary guys, then I will do the best I can to expose its arrogance and ignorance.
Ken Rice is not a boy scout. But he’s also not a conspirator in some elaborate company-wide plot at Enron either.
Good points. You also made it clear earlier that none of these 3 people owned Enron options but instead had options in ECI which was n0t public and not Enron.
So the Gov. theory is that Hirko, Shelby and Yeager conspired to raise Enron stock in April of 1999 but they did not own Enron options or stock at that time?
They were forced by Jeff Skilling and the Board of Directors to swap their ECI options for Enron stock and options in July of 1999 after they decided to take ECI core into Enron.
The government is on record here in writing that all it takes is the implication of a conspiracy even if the theory is absolutely flawed like their theory is. You have to go to prison for life if one prosecutor thinks in a warped unlogical way that there is an implication of an conspiracy. There is no proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Read the last sentance of the excerpt. It is against the constitution, it is a form of prosecutorial abuse and it is just plain stupid to think people who have no history ever of committing any crime would committ a crime of lying to the public to raise a stock that you did not own.
Stupid and scary and Joe Hirko is in jail right now because the system is so corrupt he is better off going to jail that going to trail where this kind of totally flawed thinking is allowed to be in court and not thrown out immediately for how stupid it is.
Thanks for pointing this out.
As you point out, the fact they didn’t even own Enron options is the biggest glaring flaw in the government’s theory. There were *many* flaws.
This makes me sick. It’s a small thing, and as I said, I wasn’t really defending everything Rice had done, but I just find this part crazy – Rice just waltzes into a conspiracy with three guys who have never so much as had a parking ticket?
I’m not buying it.
And the government should be ashamed of itself for hurting these men in this way. Hirko is in prison! JOE HIRKO! And they’re still going after Rex Shelby. It’s crazy, but under the crazy is just a very sad tragedy.