HOUSTON – A federal judge on Friday ordered former Enron Corp. (search) Chief Executive Officer Jeff Skilling (search) to stop drinking alcohol and submit to a curfew, the fallout from the former corporate star's drunken misadventure in New York in April.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Frances Stacy also ordered Skilling, 50, to undergo alcohol dependency treatment and find full-time employment or regular community service to perform.
The new restrictions came down during a hearing in Houston federal court over the conditions of Skilling's $5 million bond. Skilling, sporting a fresh haircut, appeared at the hearing accompanied by his wife.
Once hailed by Wall Street as a visionary, Skilling now faces trial on 35 counts of fraud, insider trading and lying about Enron's finances. He has pleaded not guilty.
Friday's court appearance came about as the result of an April 9 incident in New York City, which ended with police sending a drunken Skilling to the hospital as an "emotionally disturbed person."
He scuffled with his drinking partners after accusing them of being undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation (search) agents and trying to lift up a woman's blouse to see if she was hiding a microphone. The tussle ended with Skilling falling to the ground and accidentally knocking down his wife.
Prosecutors had asked the court to impose much stricter terms on Skilling including an additional $2 million in bond, a midnight curfew and an order restricting his travel to Texas. Currently, he can travel in the continental United States.
Stacy only agreed to the curfew, but left it up to the federal Pretrial Services workers in charge of monitoring Skilling to decide what hours he must be home.
"Personally, I can't imagine what good things would happen outside of your home between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m.," Stacy told Skilling.
Daniel Petrocelli (search), Skilling's lead trial lawyer, said his client for the past two weeks has been undergoing alcohol counseling.
"That's going quite well," he told Stacy. The judge also ordered Skilling to submit to drug and alcohol testing and psychiatric counseling.
Stacy expressed some aggravation that Skilling was not actively employed, a requirement of his bond when he signed it on Feb. 19.
Skilling believed he was going to remain self-employed running his business ventures, but could not do so once the government froze his bank accounts, Petrocelli complained.
Another of his attorneys, Ron Woods, said Skilling has a "full-time job" helping prepare his defense and guiding his lawyers through 120 million pages of records.
"We really need his time when he's not asleep," Woods told the judge.
"I'm still going to require a few hours a week of employment," or community service, the judge responded.
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