Enron broadband CFO gets year’s probation, 9 months’ home confinement for falsifying books

Enron exec gets home confinement after guilty plea

HOUSTON — Enron’s former broadband finance chief received one year’s probation, including nine months’ home confinement, for falsifying company books.

Kevin Howard’s sentence Monday came under a deal with prosecutors for his June 1 guilty plea. According to the Justice Department, Howard could have received up to 12 months’ home confinement under the plea deal.

Prosecutors had asked U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore for leniency in the sentence. They said Howard didn’t benefit personally from any fraud committed at Houston’s Enron, which collapsed in December 2001 under the weight of faked accounting.

Howard had been tried twice, first in 2005 in a proceeding that ended in a hung jury, then in 2006 that ended in convictions that Gilmore tossed out.