HOUSTON (AFX) - Lawyers for a former Enron Corp. broadband executive found guilty last month on fraud and conspiracy charges have asked for a new trial after several jurors said they felt pressured to convict.
Affidavits by two jurors and two alternate jurors were part of a 90-page motion by attorneys for former broadband unit finance chief Kevin Howard, who was convicted on five counts of fraud, conspiracy and falsifying records. The same panel acquitted former in-house accountant Michael Krautz of the same charges after a monthlong trial.
In their affidavits, the jurors said they believed they had been instructed by U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore and subsequently pressured by other jurors to reach a unanimous verdict and avoid a hung jury, even though they believed Howard, 43, was innocent.
A case last year against Howard, Krautz and three other broadband executives ended with a hung jury. Howard and Krautz were the first to be retried.
'There was just so much pressure to change my vote that I felt like we had to compromise and give in to the majority because I felt like there was no other choice,' juror Anne Marie Campbell said in her affidavit.
Campbell said at one point, a male juror who had voted for conviction 'even tried to grab the shoulders' of a female juror who had voted not guilty and he also 'banged his fist on the table during deliberations.'
Another juror, Cheryl Oswalt, said one juror 'insinuated during deliberations that they had changed their votes for Krautz, so maybe we might consider changing our votes for Howard.'
'This does go beyond the normal give-and-take process that all juries go through in reaching a decision,' Jim Lavine, one of Howard's attorneys, said Tuesday. Jurors 'have to confine deliberations to what happened in the courtroom. We think they went beyond that because of the influence of Enron in Houston.'
Jaclyn Lesch, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, said Tuesday she could not comment on the motion.
Howard and Krautz were accused of participating in a small piece of the fraud that brought down Enron in 2001.
Prosecutors said they took part in a scheme to manufacture earnings for Enron's flailing broadband unit in late 2000. Dubbed 'Project Braveheart,' the deal involved selling an interest in future revenue of a video-on-demand venture that disintegrated a few months later.
The verdict in their retrial came six days after another Houston-area jury convicted Enron founder Kenneth Lay and former Enron Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling of fraud, conspiracy and other charges as part of a massive effort to deceive investors and employees about Enron's financial strength.
Alternate juror Brenda Pfannstiel said in an affidavit the media attention in Lay and Skilling's trial and their convictions influenced deliberations. Howard's case took place next door to the courtroom where Lay and Skilling were tried.
'There was an atmosphere of 'let's fry them' referring to Enron's upper management, including Kevin Howard,' she said.
In last week's motion for a retrial, Lavine and fellow defense attorney Jack Zimmermann said one juror also admitted to reading a book about the Enron scandal and believed Howard was guilty from the outset.
Lavine and Zimmermann also said that some jurors wanted to wrap up deliberations so they could attend to personal matters. One juror was set to start a new job while another was going on vacation, according to the motion.
Gilmore had not made a ruling on the request from Howard's attorneys as of Tuesday.
Howard faces up to 25 years in prison when sentenced on Sept. 11.
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