The first criminal trial born of bankrupt Enron Corporation's collapse started yesterday as jury selection began in tattered accounting firm Andersen's federal obstruction of justice trial.
United States attorneys began selecting the panel, which will decide whether Andersen, based in Chicago, committed a crime when its employees destroyed Enron audit records that were sought by federal securities regulators.
The stakes could not be higher for Andersen, whose future hangs on the verdict, nor for the US Justice Department, which is banking on an easy first conviction to propel forward its sprawling investigation of Enron's disastrous fall.
US District Judge Melinda Harmon is overseeing the four-week trial, and is expected to keep it on a tight schedule.
The process of selecting the jury from a pool of about 120 potential jurors was expected to finish yesterday, with opening arguments set for today.
The trip to trial has been blindingly fast, given that the indictment was unsealed on March 14th.
Most complex white-collar crime cases take far longer to get to - and through - trial, but Andersen successfully pushed for an accelerated schedule it said was needed to clear its name before it crumbled to ruin.
A guilty verdict is seen as fatal, since Andersen would be barred from auditing public companies without a waiver from the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
An acquittal, however, could be the miracle Andersen needs to reverse its downward spiral - and would damage the Justice Department's credibility as it makes progress through its Enron investigations.
Legal sources said those risks to both sides meant a settlement was still not out of the question.
The parties worked to cut a deal before the indictment, and again talked intensively in April, but to no avail. Andersen is considered an underdog going in, given that its dismissed top Enron audit partner, Mr David Duncan, is the government's star witness.
In January, Andersen admitted that employees destroyed thousands of Enron records and fired Mr Duncan.
This decision came back to haunt the firm on April 9th when he pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and agreed to co-operate in exchange for a lighter sentence.
As a legal technicality, Mr Duncan's plea is enough to ensure Andersen's guilt, legal experts said.
But persuading a jury of that is another matter entirely.
Prosecutors Andrew Weissmann and Sam Buell, who both made their names taking on mobsters, are expected to lay out in great detail Andersen's extensive document destruction and the months of discussion among top partners that preceded it.
