The jury has spoken on the men of Enron and the word is guilty on most counts. They were found guilty of multiple charges of fraud and conspiracy, reports the Associated Press. The charges each carry potential sentences of five to 15 years.

The Houston Chronicle. details some of the highpoints of the testimony. The paper’s report also highlights the extent to which the defendants relied on blaming CFO Andy Fastow for the company’s problems. But that makes little business sense. Even if the company had not had all those millions stolen, it still wouldn’t account for the billions that were lost and the attempt to paper over that.

In the end, it seems, the jury did not believe their defense that the government bullied other Enron executives into pleading guilty to get the men at the top. And that’s a very hard case to make. Why would anyone plead guilty if they had not done something wrong?

Still, this is a murky case. At the end, they were lying but they muddled into it because they believed their own propaganda and thought the brilliance of their business plans would win out.

You certainly get that impression from Kurt Eichenwald’s “Conspiracy of Fools.” Scene after scene sees Lay and Skilling making dumb business decisions and throwing good money after bad because they thought they were so clever at management that they could make anything more efficient and profitable than the incumbent managers. And when those plans started to fall apart, they told lies to keep the ship afloat and that became criminal.

We’ll hear lots about the case for the next few days so look out for the simplicity of the government’s case to be a big factor in the conviction. Rather than overwhelm and bore the jury with arcane accounting issues, the government focused on the moral malfeasance which the jury could understand.

Of course, the arcane requirements of the conspiracy charge could be their own trap. Look for the appeals to drag on for a couple of years at least and don’t be surprised if a few appellate judges look sympathetically on the argument that bad business decisions are being criminalized and that the law should allow bad business decisions to stand without sending the CEO to the big house.