Westar Energy Convictions Reversed

The criminal convictions of Wittig and Lake, convicted of looting Wester Energy of Topeka, were reversed by the tenth circuit.  The opinion joins the list of other several circuit court opinions that have reversed convictions in major trials over financial scandals that were disclosed in 2002.  Here is the pattern. Prosecutors discover widespread financial fraud can be very technical -- so they pick what they see as a clean, focused instance of abuse.  At trial, the prosecutors cannot resist attempting to throw in all the bad conduct, most of it irrelevant to the specific charge, and they find that the charge they have chosen, in the heat of the moment, is itself a very technical claim.  In the Witting and Lake case they chose to feature the executives personal use of company aircraft.  The prosecutors came to realize late, apparently, that there is an SEC rule on the issue and the defendants may not have violated the rule.  It makes sense to choose a specific part of the fraud to try but -- prosecutors must choose, as the saying goes, wisel and then stick to the strategy, try the case narrowly to match the claim