Legal News

Report: Ex Dynegy Exec Olis Seeks Recusal of Judge Lake

By Dan Slater

LB e-mail correspondent Bill Olis, father of Jamie Olis, the Dynegy executive who’s serving a six-year sentence for his alleged role in an accounting scam, has just tipped us off to a new twist in his son’s case. Jamie’s lawyer has asked Judge Sim Lake, of Enron fame, to remove himself from continued proceedings in the case. The Houston Chron’s Legal Trade blog has the report. (Click here for a WSJ article about Olis’s appeal.)

Olis’s lawyer, Lloyd Kelley, is requesting that Lake remove himself because, Kelley claims, Lake was too close to the late Mike Shelby, the local U.S. attorney in Texas at the time Olis was prosecuted. Shelby, who’d been suffering from cancer, committed suicide in 2006 after having joined Fulbright & Jaworski as a partner.

In Kelley’s letter, reports the Chron, he notes that Lake and Shelby went to the same schools, served in the military and worked at the same law firm (all at different times) and that Lake swore in Shelby as U.S. attorney. Kelley argues that Shelby’s death will cloud Lake’s judgment in the Olis case. Lake reportedly filed an order today giving the confidentially filed letter to the U.S. Attorney’s office and asking for a response within 20 days.

Lawyers for Olis, a former Dynegy Inc. executive convicted of fraud and conspiracy charges in 2003, have been seeking his release from prison, citing new evidence of misconduct by prosecutors.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on May 02, 2008 (boomark / email).