Former Enron chiefs convicted of conspiracy and fraud

Former Enron Corp chiefs Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were convicted today of conspiracy and securities and wire fraud in one of the biggest business scandals in US history.

The verdict put the blame for the 2001 demise of the high-profile energy trader, once the nation’s seventh-largest company, squarely on its top two executives. It came on the sixth day of deliberations following a federal criminal trial in Houston, Texas, that lasted nearly four months.