The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Jeffrey Skilling, Enron Corp.’s former president, CEO and COO, with violating federal securities laws.

The former chief executive Jeffrey Skilling was taken to court in handcuffs Thursday and charged with more than three dozen counts of fraud and other crimes in the highest-reaching indictment yet stemming from Enron’s colossal collapse.

Skilling is accused of participating in widespread schemes to mislead regulators and investors about the company’s earnings.

The SEC brought its action in coordination with the Department of Justice Enron Task Force, which filed related criminal charges against Skilling. The SEC is seeking disgorgement of all ill-gotten gains, including compensation; civil money penalties; a permanent bar from acting as a director or officer of a publicly held company; and injunction from future violations of federal securities laws

The charges allege that Skilling and others engaged in a wide-ranging scheme to defraud by manipulating Enron’s publicly reported financial results. The SEC alleges that Skilling and others improperly used reserves within Enron’s wholesale energy trading business to manufacture and manipulate reported earnings; manipulated Enron’s “business segment reporting” to conceal losses; manufactured earnings by fraudulently promoting Enron’s broadband unit; and improperly used special purpose entities and the LJM partnerships to manipulate Enron’s financial results.

The SEC’s complaint further alleges that Skilling sold Enron stock while in possession of material, non-public information that generated unlawful proceeds of approximately US$63 million.

“In this scandal, as in others, we are by now all too familiar with executives who bask in the attention that follows the appearance of corporate success, but who then shout their ignorance when the appearance gives way to the reality of corruption. Let there be no mistake that today’s enforcement action against Mr. Skilling places accountability exactly where it belongs,” said SEC enforcement division director Stephen Cutler.