U.S. Supreme Court to hear Jeffrey Skilling’s appeal

Jeffrey Skilling will get his day in front of the highest court in the land.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear the former Enron Corp. chief executive officer’s appeal of his conviction for leading the fraud that destroyed the Houston energy trader, according to the court’s docket files.

In his argument, Skilling contends that the federal statute known as “honest services” was not valid because the jury was not required to review whether he acted for private gain or the company’s gain. The federal statute covers mail and wire fraud schemes to “deprive another of the intangible right to honest services.”

In addition, he argues that pretrial publicity prejudiced the jury.

In 2006, Skilling was found guilty of fraud, conspiracy, insider trading and giving false information to auditors and was sentenced to 24 years in jail.

His co-defendant, Enron founder Kenneth Lay, died from heart disease on July 5, 2006. Lay’s convictions on 10 counts of fraud, conspiracy and lying to banks in two separate cases were wiped out with his death.

Skilling’s case is Skilling v. United States, 08-1394.