by TChris

Dennis Kozlowski narrowly escaped conviction when, after hearing evidence for six months, his jury was discharged and a mistrial declared. While the media focused on the ill-fated trial of the former Tyco CEO and his co-defendant, The New York Times reports that other white collar prosecutions are in the works, and that some have already been more successful.

Last week, Jamie Olis, a former midlevel executive at Dynegy, a Houston energy company, was sentenced to more than 24 years in prison for his role in accounting fraud at the company. The sentence was one of the most severe imposed in a white-collar fraud case, prosecutors and defense lawyers said.

The judge who sentenced Olis explains his reasoning here.

Prosecutors are also pursuing executives at other publicly traded companies, including Computer Associates, a software maker, and the McKesson Corporation, a pharmaceutical wholesaler. Despite the mistrial in the Tyco case and a mistrial last year in the prosecution of investment banker Frank Quattrone, New York criminal defense lawyer Ira Sorkin says that corporate fraud cases can be easy for the government to win.

The evidence in white collar cases tends to be dull, and jurors could not have been happy that the Tyco trial took six months. Prosecutors should learn a lesson from the Tyco trial: jettison weak charges, focus on the things you know you can prove, and get to the point as quickly as you can.