HOUSTON — Former midlevel Dynegy Inc. tax executive Jamie Olis' 8-month-old daughter could be a college graduate when he gets out of prison. He'll be a few years from qualifying for Medicare.
That's after the 38-year-old former lawyer and CPA will have had more than 20 birthdays inside a high fence topped with razor wire.
Barring an unlikely last-minute approval of an appeal bond from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Olis' life outside the fence is about to end. On Thursday, he must trade business suits for prison-issue khaki pants and shirts at the low security federal prison for men in Bastrop, Texas, and begin serving his 24-year, four-month sentence for conspiracy and fraud.
Olis was convicted last year for participating in a 2001 scheme to disguise a loan as cash flow to please Wall Street. His case personifies beefed-up federal sentencing guidelines that force double-digit sentences for white collar criminals whose actions are linked to investor losses of $100 million or more.
"While this is the first one to cause people to kind of gasp, he's not going to be the last," said Preston Burton, a former federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C. who serves on the U.S. Sentencing Commission's practitioners' advisory group.
Olis' co-defendants — his former boss and a colleague — cut deals with prosecutors that guaranteed them no more than five years in prison. No higher ups who could have nixed the scheme, revelations of which contributed to Dynegy stock tanking in 2002, have been charged.
Chris Flood, who represents one of four former Merrill Lynch & Co. executives slated for trial next month on conspiracy charges related to a questionable 1999 transaction with Enron, said Olis' fate could prompt defendants certain of their innocence to cut a deal.
"People should plead guilty because they are guilty, not because they're worried society will unreasonably punish them for things they didn't do," Flood said.
Unsympathetic prosecutors say Olis traded integrity for six-figure bonuses and promotions. "He chose to risk everything he had accomplished by going along with a decision to trick investors," prosecutor Jimmy Sledge told a judge when Olis was sentenced.
At 38, Olis is the average age of a federal inmate. He will share a dormitory-like room with two to three other men in one of four housing units at the low-security prison near Austin.
Olis will earn 12 to 40 cents per hour as a food server, orderly, plumber, painter, warehouse worker or some other assigned job five days a week. In his spare time he can play basketball, softball, handball, pool or ride a stationary bike. The prison also offers a 160-hour course in landscaping.
The only former Enron executive so far to go to prison — former treasurer Ben Glisan Jr. — is serving a five-year sentence for conspiracy at Bastrop's minimum-security prison camp adjacent to the facility where Olis will live.
A fellow white collar felon called Olis' term "unreal."
"Having been in that position myself, prison is scary enough, just the thought of it," said Walt Pavlo, a former MCI finance executive who served two years after pleading guilty to fraud and other charges for hiding bad debts before WorldCom acquired the long-distance carrier.
"The thought of going away for the rest of your life, that's really hard to comprehend."