Daniel Petrocelli, a partner at O’Melveny & Myers, has represented former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling since February 2004. But until Tuesday, Petrocelli had little good news for his now-imprisoned client.
On Tuesday the Supreme Court handed Skilling his “first breakthrough in eight years of misery,” Petrocelli said Wednesday in an interview from his Century City, Calif., office. The justices agreed to hear his appeal, setting the stage for arguments early next year. Skilling is challenging the “honest services” fraud law under which he was convicted, and he also claims that the massive pretrial publicity and animosity toward him in Houston should have led a federal trial judge to say yes to his 2004 request for a change of venue.
