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Enron prosecutor on Joe Nacchio team

Sean Berkowitz has role defending former Qwest CEO

By Keith Coffman, Special To Rocky

Published July 23, 2008 at 9:05 p.m.

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Sean Berkowitz, former Enron Task Force director, left, and Cliff Stricklin, an Enron prosecutor, in Houston in 2006.

Photo by CARLOS JAVIER SANCHEZ/BLOOMBERG NEWS/2006

Sean Berkowitz, former Enron Task Force director, left, and Cliff Stricklin, an Enron prosecutor, in Houston in 2006.

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The lawyer who prosecuted former Enron executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling is now on the other side of the white-collar crime legal fence - defending former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio from civil fraud charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Sean M. Berkowitz is named in court filings as a Nacchio defense attorney in the SEC case, which accuses Nacchio and several other former Qwest executives of misleading investors about the regional telephone carrier's revenues and growth projections between 1999 and 2001.

Berkowitz could not be reached for comment, and Nacchio's lead attorney in the criminal case, Herbert Stern, said by telephone from his New Jersey office that he wouldn't comment on Berkowitz's role while the case is pending.

Nacchio, 59, was convicted in April 2007 in Denver federal court on 19 counts of insider trading and sentenced to six years in prison, but a three-judge panel of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned his conviction this year.

The U.S. Attorney's Office has asked for a full review of that ruling by the entire 12-judge circuit. That decision is pending, as is a decision on whether Nacchio will be retried criminally.

Berkowitz directed the Enron Task Force, a team of federal prosecutors formed to prosecute wrongdoing by the Houston-based energy company that collapsed in 2002. Berkowitz and his team won convictions of Skilling and Lay on a host of security fraud, conspiracy and insider trading charges in a highly publicized trial in 2006.

Lay died at a home he owned in Aspen before his sentencing, and his conviction was vacated. Skilling is serving a 24-year sentence at a federal prison in Minnesota and is appealing his conviction and sentence.

Berkowitz left the Department of Justice shortly after the Skilling and Lay trial to join the Chicago office of the international law firm of Latham & Watkins.

Nacchio's lead appellate attorney, Maureen Mahoney, also works at Latham & Watkins in its Washington, D.C., office.

Another member of the Enron prosecution team, Cliff Stricklin, who also was the lead prosecutor in the criminal case against Nacchio, told the Rocky Mountain News that Berkowitz is a good friend and a good lawyer.

"But a skilled lawyer doesn't matter as much as the quality of the facts in a case," said Stricklin, who likewise left the government to join the law firm of Holland & Hart in Denver.

No trial date will be set for the SEC civil case until all legal matters surrounding Nacchio's criminal case are resolved.

Comments

  • July 24, 2008

    9:05 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Brockage writes:

    Good. Maybe now the guy will get a fair shake (and especially now that a vindictive "journalist" who used to grind away on nearly every column attacking Nacchio during the trial has moved along and won't pollute Denver news anymore). BTW, that "journalist" did not work for thr Rocky.

  • July 24, 2008

    9:33 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Moore70344 writes:

    Why would someone who prosecuted Ken Lay turn around and defend Joe Nacchio? He got out of jail on a technicality and left Colorado taxpayers holding the bag for his greed. We need to do something about corporate fraud, and I would think that the lawyer who prosecuted the Enron thieves would understand that. I just don't get it.

  • July 24, 2008

    3:18 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    jjez writes:

    Everyone is out for a buck (or a couple million bucks). He probably hated being the "bad guy" for prosecuting the oh so innocent corporate bigwigs who raped their companies. But truly, he's the best guy for the job because he knows all the tricks the prosecuters will now use to try to get Joe the justice he truly deserves. Because he used them to get the Enron guys. Sorry Brockage, but you have no idea how truly guilty Nacchio is. Not for everything he was accused of, which is why it was only 19 out of 40 counts. But he is guilty.