HOUSTON – Defense lawyers for Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling said two months ago they would prove not only that the top executives did not know about any wrongdoing at Enron, but that there was no wrongdoing, save for the actions of a few bad apples.
Monday in a federal courthouse here they'll begin to try to build their case for that bold assertion - one never before used as a defense in a corporate corruption trial.
The "there was no evil" defense is a high-risk strategy, but it may be born of necessity, court watchers say. In other recent trials involving allegations of corner-office malfeasance, the usual argument - that corruption existed but that corporate leaders were ignorant of it - often didn't fly.
"Jurors are quite skeptical of CEOs who ask them to accept that they were competent, hands-on managers, but completely unaware of massive fraud right under their noses," says Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor. "I can assure you that [Messrs Skilling and Lay] have paid attention to other CEOs who have tried to raise [that] defense and failed."
Details here from The Christian Science Monitor.