Andersen Guilty; Aid in Enron Case?

June 17 -- While prosecutors say they are pleased with the jury's guilty verdict in the Arthur Andersen trial, the decision may not have made the government's ongoing case against Enron much easier.

After 10 days of deliberations, a Houston jury found Andersen guilty of obstruction of juctice, for destroying documents last October related to the Security and Exchange Commission's investigation of Enron, the now-bankrupt energy-trading firm.

Andersen faces up to five years of probation and a fine of up to $500,000. It also could be assessed damages for anything the court determines was caused by the firm's action and be barred from auditing publicly traded companies. U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon will determine the firm's sentence.

Help in the Enron Prosecution?

Government officials are putting a positive spin on the outcome, implying it is an important building block in a successful case against Enron.

"This can only help us," said Leslie Caldwell, head of the criminal division of the Justice Department's San Francisco office and leader of its national Enron Task Force. "It sends a strong message that we are going to get to the bottom of the Enron debacle and those people responsible will be prosecuted."

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But some observers question whether the outcome of the trial will make much of a difference as the government scrutinizes the actions of Enron and some of its former high-ranking executives.

"I don't think this prosecution of Arthur Andersen gets us any closer to tying down a case against Ken Lay and [Andrew] Fastow and several other individuals who really did damage to the public," said James Cox, a law professor at Duke University in Durham, N.C.

For one thing, the fact that the jury deliberated so long over obstruction-of-justice-charges, even though David Duncan, the former Andersen partner in charge of the Enron account, had himself already pleaded guilty to the same crime, may not bode well if federal prosecutors file the same charges against individuals at Enron.