Facing Retrial, Former Enron Broadband Chief Pleads Guilty

[WSJ_law_blog]

The former CEO of Enron Broadband Services was supposed to be retried. Instead, he pleaded guilty yesterday to one count of wire fraud. (For past coverage of the tangled Enron Broadband case, click here.) Here’s the AP report.

The deal requires Joseph Hirko, 52, to serve up to 16 months in prison and make about $8.7 million in restitution to the government for Enron victims. He also agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in other pending broadband prosecutions. Sentencing is set for March 3.

Hirko admitted to allowing press releases to be distributed in 2000 that said a groundbreaking operating system had been embedded in Enron’s broadband network that would allow users to pay only for bandwidth they used instead of a flat monthly fee. In fact, the system was still under development and the bandwidth-on-demand feature never materialized.

Per Ramfjord, one of Hirko’s lawyers, reportedly said in Tuesday’s online edition of the Houston Chronicle that the plea allowed him to “reduce the risk of going to trial and puts him in a position to be able to return to an active life as soon as possible.”