Prosecutors asked a federal judge on Wednesday to hold off wiping late Enron founder Ken Lay’s fraud and conspiracy convictions from the books until Congress can consider a U.S. Justice Department proposal to take such power away from the courts.
According to a motion filed with U.S. Judge Sim Lake, the Justice Department on Tuesday asked Congress to pass a law that would prevent judges from vacating convictions, which could happen in Lay’s case because he died after being found guilty but before he could appeal his convictions.
The proposed law would apply to any case still active on July 1, making it still possible for U.S. prosecutors to force Lay’s estate, overseen by his wife Linda, to forfeit $43.5 million the government has said Lay gained illegally.
An attorney for Lay’s estate declined comment until he could review the motion, which was filed late on Wednesday afternoon.
A Justice Department spokeswoman was not available to discuss the motion.
Federal courts have adopted a doctrine that if a defendant dies before all appeals are exhausted, the defendant’s convictions and indictments can be expunged by a judge’s ruling.
“The doctrine as applied in many federal courts directly and unnecessarily harms crime victims,” chief Enron prosecutor Sean Berkowitz and Assistant U.S. Attorney John Hueston wrote in the motion.
“It erases the hard-won verdicts against those who have wronged them, verdicts that might aid crime victims in civil litigation,” Berkowitz and Hueston wrote.
Civil lawsuits filed by former Enron shareholders and employees are seeking millions of dollars from Lay’s estate.
Lay and former Enron Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling were convicted on May 25 after a 16-week trial in Houston. Both men faced decades in prison for their roles in hiding Enron’s rotting financial structure prior to the company’s collapse.
Lay died of a heart attack early on July 5 while staying at a vacation house in Aspen, Colorado.
Skilling still faces sentencing on October 23, the date to which prosecutors asked Lake to delay any ruling on a request from Lay’s attorneys that his conviction be expunged because of his death.
Lay built Enron from a small pipeline company in 1985 into an international energy powerhouse before its spectacular collapse in 2001.
Lay was at one time a confidant of Washington policy makers and a close friend of former President George H.W. Bush and financial supporter of President George W. Bush.