Texas - The convicted Enron fraudster's 24 year jail term has just been cut to 14 which, according to Dallas legal sources, with seven years of relatively good behavior already served, leaves the parole floodgates wide open at last.
"Skilling could be out by early July," a barfly at the J Clifford Baxter RIP Memorial Lounge in the Dallas Cattle Rustlers Bar commented.
"He plea-bargained his ass off for this sentence reduction all for the bargain-basement sum of forty million bucks."
Skilling was jailed in 2006 convicted on 19 criminal charges including conspiracy, insider trading, securities fraud and making false statements to auditors.
Today a Southern District of Texas judge's ruling called for the $40 million restitution damages to be distributed among fallen energy giant Enron's victims.
That could include the widow of former company finance director J Clifford Baxter whose two-bullet suicide in a Texas car lot brought many interesting lines of inquiry to a sudden halt.
And relatives of convicted Enron boss Ken 'Kenny Boy' Lay who conveniently had a massive heart attack just weeks before the start of a 30 year custodial sentence.
July 4th is on a Thursday this year.
