Ex-Enron CEO Skilling asks court to throw out verdict

Former Enron Corp. chief executive Jeff Skilling, with his attorney Daniel Petrocelli (R), is escorted from Federal court in Houston October 23, 2006. Skilling asked a U.S. appeals court on Friday to throw out his convictions stemming from the one-time energy trading giant's spectacular rise and dramatic collapse.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Former Enron Corp. Chief Executive Jeff Skilling asked a U.S. appeals court on Friday to throw out his convictions stemming from the one-time energy trading giant's spectacular rise and dramatic collapse.

Attorneys for Skilling, who is serving a 24-year term at a federal minimum security prison in Minnesota, told the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals failures by prosecutors and the trial judge led to his convictions and long prison sentence.

"Skilling's claims of serious error did not occur in a vacuum," his attorneys wrote in the 237-page appeal filed with the court in New Orleans. "They are the product of a lapse of reason, wisdom and fairness that has propelled the government's criminalization of Enron's collapse."

Skilling and former Enron Chairman Ken Lay were convicted in May 2006 on conspiracy and fraud charges. Lay died of a heart attack in July of that year and his convictions were thrown out because he died before his appeals were exhausted.

Skilling's attorneys wrote that the U.S. government's case was based on a flawed legal theory and aided by bad jury instructions, failure to take in account prejudice against Skilling in Houston where the trial was held and misconduct by prosecutors.

"These are not perfunctory complaints," the attorneys wrote of the prosecutorial misconduct allegations. "This was a systematic suppression of evidence, sanctioned by the highest officers of the (Enron) Task Force, revealed by their own documents."

A Justice Department representative was not immediately available to discuss the appeal.

Prior to filing in December 2001 what was at that time the largest U.S. corporate bankruptcy, Enron ECSPQ.PK had risen to be the seventh-largest U.S. corporation and Lay was touted as a possible Bush administration appointee.

But the company's fortunes unraveled after revelations the company had used off-the-books deals to hide billions of dollars in debts.

(Reporting by Erwin Seba)