HOUSTON (CNN) - Former Enron Corp. accounting chief Richard Causey surrendered to authorities Thursday and pleaded not guilty to charges of securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud.
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Causey entered his plea before Judge Frances Stacy in federal court in Houston, a court clerk told CNN.
Causey turned himself in to federal authorities Thursday morning. Video from Houston affiliate KHOU showed Causey being led into the FBI building, escorted by a U.S. marshal.
Causey's surrender comes after former Enron Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow and his wife -- a former assistant treasurer with the company -- pleaded guilty last week to three counts between them as part of deals reached with federal prosecutors.
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Andrew Fastow will serve 10 years in prison while his wife Lea will serve five months.
Prosecutors allege that Causey, Enron's chief accounting officer from 1996 to 2002, worked side-by-side with Fastow to help manipulate the books and earnings at the failed energy company.
The case against Causey is another piece in the puzzle as federal prosecutors try to build their case against Enron's former CEO Jeffrey Skilling and former Chairman Kenneth Lay. Both men are being investigated but neither has been formally charged, and both have maintained they did nothing wrong.
Houston-based Enron was the nation's leading energy trading company until it was forced to restate earnings and slash the value of its shareholder equity in the weeks that led up to a bankruptcy filing in December 2001.
Thousands of Enron employees lost their jobs and much of their life savings, and investors lost billions of dollars after the company's implosion.
The failure of Enron was among the first of a string of corporate scandals that ultimately led Congress to pass new laws aimed at stricter oversight of corporate accounting.
-- Reuters contributed to this report
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