All it takes is a little patience. F. Scott Yeager, a former Enron executive, got some good news from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which ruled that it wouldn't revisit his case. So, he no longer has criminal charges related to financial fraud hanging over him. Yeager has been acquitted on all counts. This follows a June ruling by the Supreme Court, which tossed a previous 5th Circuit Court ruling that could have resulted in a new trial.

The ruling said, "Today, ... it is clear under our initial ... analysis the jury made a finding in acquitting Yeager that precludes prosecution on insider trading and money laundering." Samuel Buffone, who was one of Yeager's attorneys, stated that his client shouldn't have been indicted to begin with and didn't do anything wrong. It has taken them seven years to get to this point.

Yeager landed in hot water because he sold stock in Enron for more than $54 million before it began the plunge that would ultimately end with its bankruptcy in 2001. He faced 125 counts, was acquitted of five (four for wire fraud and one for conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud) and wound up with a hung jury for the remaining 120, which included insider trading and money laundering. He was later indicted again on 13 counts of insider trading and money laundering.

This post is part of a feature in which he wonder whatever happened to some notorious financial felons. See all 17.

Jeffrey Skilling was the Enron CEO who tried to pin the blame for its 2001 bankruptcy on anyone but himself. He was not able to convince a jury, however. When Fortune raised questions about Enron in 2001, Skilling dismissed those "who want to throw rocks at us." And in a conference call with a hedge fund manager, Highfields Capital analyst Richard Grubman, who had shorted Enron stock, Skilling called Grubman an expletive beginning with the letter A.

Now, Skilling -- whose sentence was double that of other Enron convicts -- was serving a 24-year sentence in Waseca Federal Correctional Institution in Minnesota. Last month, Skilling was moved to a low-security prison in Littleton, Colo. The poor fellow will be about 74 years old when he is released in February 2028 -- that is, unless he gets pardoned by the current president, he wins an appeal, or he gets out early on parole.

Peter Cohan is president of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College. His eighth book, You Can't Order Change: Lessons from Jim McNerney's Turnaround at Boeing, will be published by Portfolio on December 26, 2008.

This post is part of a feature in which he wonder whatever happened to some notorious financial felons. See all 17.

There was one company that I believed in during my journalism career. It was a scrappy underdog challenging the establishment and made scads of money. Back in the day, it was sure easy to root for Enron, and Andrew Fastow was one of the reasons why.

Fastow was not suave like his boss Jeffrey Skilling -- whom I met several times -- and lacked the people skills of President Bush's pal Chief Executive Ken "Kenny boy" Lay. No, Fastow was a humorless number cruncher. His importance to Enron can not be overemphasized. As Time magazine notes, "Fastow had a skill Skilling needed; he did asset 'securitization,' a means for banks to sell off risk in the form of securities backed by mortgages or other obligations."

Wow, the roots of today's financial difficulties can be traced back to Enron!

There is nothing evil. about special-purpose entities. At first, Enron's initial investors did well because the deals were straightforward. CalPERS, put $250 million into an spe called jedi i, which invested in natural gas projects. Four years late, the California State Pension Plan CalPERS got back $433 million, a 73% return over four years.

This post is part of a feature in which we wonder whatever happened to some notorious financial figures. See the other 17.

As Wall Street implodes around us, the word "hubris" is getting tossed around quite a bit. Hubris -- also known as excessive, overweening pride -- has become the catchall explanation for most of the market's ills. Our financial system has gone up in flames, we're told, simply because so many CEOs and regulators thought they were too smart to fail, no matter how highly leveraged their subprime mortgage portfolios may have been.

Assuming this is true, let's call Joseph Nacchio a trendsetter. As the chief executive of Qwest Communications International (NYSE: Q), Nacchio was determined to construct the world's biggest, best, and most totally awesome fiber-optic network. (Mind you, this was back in the late '90s, when the telecom bubble was just a glimmer in the market's eye.) However, the plucky CEO was driven not by a personal commitment to excellence, but rather by spite.

Nacchio left his old job at AT&T (NYSE: T) because he wasn't granted a plum promotion to president, which he felt he so richly deserved. What better way to show up his former employer than to build a superior network and steal away market share?

Unfortunately, Nacchio's impure motivations were not the best recipe for success. To give you some idea as to how his plans for world telecom domination played out, check out this blog entry I wrote about Qwest and Joseph Nacchio as part of our series on the worst S&P 500 stocks of the past 25 years.

This post is part of a series on some of the most memorable companies that have disappeared.

Whenever I hear a company chief executive talk about "creative destruction" or "breaking the rules" or some other business buzzwords, a chill runs down my spine. You see, I have heard this sort of talk many times before -- from a company in Houston called Enron.

I was one of the many journalists who drank the Enron Kool-Aid. It was easy to understand why. Enron was the underdog, doing battle against the stuffy electric power industry to free up markets for competition, which in turn would save consumers tons of money. Everybody would win -- at least in theory -- and Enron would make tons of money in the process. The narrative the company spun was compelling, and I bought it hook, line, and sinker.

I dutifully scribbled down electricity and natural gas prices from Enron traders when I covered energy markets. Enron traders were always a chatty bunch. Enron's trading floor seemed to beehive of activity when I visited it during tours escorted by the company's public relations staff. It sure looked high-tech and had almost as many Bloomberg terminals as there were in the Bloomberg offices where I worked as a reporter.

Only years later did I realize that the whole thing was a sham.

For a guy who was once at the apex of business running the seventh largest company in America, prison life must be pretty boring. Mopping duty and smuggling pruno can't hold a candle to flying around with politicians and plotting schemes for raping the California energy markets.

So what's a fellow in former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling's unenviable position to do with all that free time? Try to find a way to get out! This week, a court will consider the possibility of overturning Mr. Skilling's convictions on one count of conspiracy, one count of insider trading, five counts of lying to auditors, and twelve counts of securities on fraud. Mr. Skilling is serving a sentence of more than 24 years in Club Fed.

Mr. Skilling and his lawyers have some hope, based on newly-released documents, including 400 pages of handwritten transcripts of interviews with the government's star witness, former CFO Andy Fastow. The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) that "The Skilling legal team says the notes undermine trial testimony by Mr. Fastow, a star government witness against Mr. Skilling. It says the notes refute Mr. Fastow's contention that he and Mr. Skilling discussed illegal accounting maneuvers. The Justice Department disputes this characterization."

Skilling's lawyers argue that this evidence was "deliberately and systematically" withheld from the defense which, they say, is grounds for overturning the verdict. Prosecutors replied in their brief that "microscopic and misleading dissection of the Fastow notes provides no basis for overturning the jury's verdict."

The head of former energy trading company Enron, Jeffrey Skilling, has won a short delay in his request to report to prison. Skilling will begin serving a 24-year sentence on fraud and conspiracy charges soon. Originally, Skilling was supposed to report to prison today in Waseca, Minnesota at the low-security prison there. Waseca is 75 miles south of Minneapolis.

Skilling, quite naturally, is appealing his conviction. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans delayed his reporting date yesterday, in order to allow enough time to consider a request for bail during Skilling's appeal. This was just in time to prevent Skilling from having to report to Waseca.

The delay -- according to the court -- was "solely to allow this court to give careful consideration to the request for bail pending appeal" based on text at the court's website. The court did not set a new prison report date yet. Skilling was planning to undergo alcohol and mental health counseling at Waseca. Completion of this would have taken an entire year off his sentence, and in addition, Skilling was looking to earn 54 days a year off his sentence for good behavior.

Do you think all the folks involved in the Enron scandal -- Lay, Skilling, Fastow -- deserved what they received? For Lay, some would argue he escaped easily by passing away before his sentence began. Fastow pleaded out and received a less steep sentence, and then Skilling became the highest-ranking executive in corporate America -- thus far -- to receive such a long prison sentence.

In a perfect sign o' the times, Enron: The Musical is coming to Lambert Hall in Houston. The opening of the play today may touch a very sore nerve for many Houstonians, but the sheer psychological impact that the actual Enron debacle left on the American financial landscape seems like the perfect setting for a musical I guess. Maybe Tim Burton had something to do with it, eh? If so, the musical would have been called "The Nightmare Before Enron" or something.

The musical will feature two acts with six local actors -- each playing up to 10 roles (including those Kenneth L. Lay, Jeffrey K. Skilling and Andrew S. Fastow). Enron's songs are show-tune parodies such as Thank Heaven for Off The Books Deals. Very nice. Like I said, opening this play in Houston may give comic relief to some, but to others who lost college funds, their life savings or even their homes, this play may bring some memories that were just starting to be packed away in the back of many minds.

The writer-director-producer of the play -- who sells janitorial supplies during his day job -- Mark Fraser, said "I did a lot of research because even though it's satire, I wanted it to be factually correct. [...] A lot of the stuff in the play people will think I made up because it's so ludicrous, but it's actually all true."

So, if you're in the mood to relive one of the nation's largest corporate scandal, be sure to stop in and catch Enron: The Musical this weekend in Lambert Hall, Houston. If you want to try and make a statement, though, pay your admission with Monopoly money if you have one of those board games lying around.

Since becoming a part of the bloggingstocks team I have observed that two things have gotten readers' passions in an uproar more than anything else based on clicks and comments. One is the Ken Lay / Enron saga and the other is Ebay (NASDAQ:EBAY) and their variable strategies for dealing equitably with vendors. Jim Cramer posts also get a lot of attention from our readers...go figure?

Ken Lay, the deceased CEO of Enron, escaped punishment for his conviction on numerous charges related to Enron's demise, not the least of which was selling his soul. In my book, he deceived the public, he deceived investors, he deceived his employees, he deceived his business associates, and he deceived himself. His family cremated the body so not much is left. While he will not be spending any time behind bars the pressure of the prosecution, the trial and verdict no doubt caused him to pay a high price. He lost his reputation, he lost his privilege and he lost his life. What else is there? His soul?

In reading some of the negative comments about Ebay from my many posts it is clear that there is a segment of the Internet population that feels Ebay sold its soul to the devil. That got me thinking about what a soul is worth. And from there, could you auction one off on Ebay? People sell the naming of stars in the universe. People sell rights to other imaginary things in the solar system. They legitimize this with various certificates and nonsense... and they make some money. How much is a soul worth? In Ken Lay's case it may have been worth billions of dollars at one time; he must have had "key man insurance". When he sold his soul a lot of Enron value evaporated. Now that he is gone his soul is worth nothing -- or is it? If someone posted it for sale on Ebay would there be any bids? Would Ebay accept such a thing? If there were bids what would the high bidder receive?

Yes I know this is all very silly and I reserve the right to be silly at times, if it stretches one's mind and causes people to think about how their actions affect others and how value is created and destroyed. At the same time there have been some strange things for sale on Ebay. Does Ebay strictly prohibit the sale of souls? If so, than how could they have sold theirs? Is this another conflict of interest?

In the mean time Ebay has issued a very positive quarterly earnings report to the chagrin of it's detractors; Cramer's ratings are through the roof (even if he has lost some integrity in the process); and Jeffrey Skilling, the ex-Enron president, was sentenced to 24 years and 4 months behind bars, thus assuring that we have not heard the end of this saga. So that must be what the judge and jury thought his soul was worth. It will be a course in most business schools for sure. Oh yes... and I have my worthless Enron stock certificate framed and hung on the wall in my office as a reminder that I make mistakes too and should try very hard not to repeat them.

Disclosure: I sold my last shares of Ebay January 2006. My Enron certificate does have some minimal value as a collectors item.

Other must reads:

Time Warner Cable no longer stuck in the muddle

Energy: Going forward while looking back

All Cramer needs now is a PIE in the FACE
DOW 14,000 here we come!

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the vice president for Design and Research of an Architecture & Planning firm.