Houston, Oct 31: A former Enron Corp. executive has pleaded guilty to one count of insider trading, acknowledging he was in on a "senior management'' scheme to manipulate the company's earnings to meet or exceed wall street's expectations. Dave Delainey, a former chief executive of Enron North America, agreed yesterday to cooperate with Federal prosecutors in exchange for the plea. His indictment, handed up Wednesday and unsealed yesterday in conjunction with a hearing at the federal courthouse in Houston, alleges he sold USD 4.2 million worth of stock while knowing the company was raiding subsidiary Enron North America and masking it as income. "This misuse of reserves in order to manipulate Enron's earnings results was discussed and approved among Enron's and Enron North America's senior commercial and accounting managers,'' the indictment said.
The indictment did not identify the other managers, and Federal prosecutor Sam Buell of the justice department's Enron task force declined to say who could be next.
"Enron company executives engaged in widespread and pervasive fraud to manipulate the company's earnings results,'' Buell said. "The events of today show the truth will come out about Enron and its collapse,'' he said yesterday. Bureau Report