Incarcerated Enron CEO, Jeffrey Skilling, Released To Undisclosed Halfway House

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Incarcerated former Enron boss, Jeffrey Skilling, 64, has been released from prison and to a halfway house at an undisclosed location. Skilling was incarcerated for 12 years for committing corporate fraud amounting to several millions of dollars.
Skilling’s fraud contributed largely to ruining Enron, an electricity generation and natural gas company. The news of the corporate fraud traveled far and wide when probes revealed the company fabricated its accounting to exaggerate profits.
Enron filed for bankruptcy in late 2001, causing thousands of employees to lose their jobs. Thousands of investors suffered financial misfortunes when Enron’s shares plummeted sharply. The company suffered the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history at the time.
Skilling was initially charged with 28 counts of corporate misconducts and sentenced to 24 years in prison. But this was reduced to 19 counts of criminal misconducts and 14 years in prison after he agreed with federal prosecutors to a plea deal.
Some of the charges he was convicted for include securities fraud, insider trading, falsifying financial books to mislead auditors, insider trading and conspiracy. Enron’s pension plan was substantially compromised as a result of these misconducts.
Skilling was also fined $45 million as restitution for victims of the fraud.
Enron filed for bankruptcy four months after Skilling left the company on August 14, 2001 after he sold off $60 million worth of company shares.
He served out his prison term at a minimum security prison in Montgomery, Alabama.
Skilling was not the only one fingered in the massive fraud at Enron. Enron’s founder, Kenneth Lay, and other company executives were also convicted of securities fraud. But Lay died while awaiting sentencing in 2006.

