Jeffrey Skilling, Enron’s former chief executive, was on Monday sentenced to 24 years and four months in prison for orchestrating the fraud and conspiracy that destroyed the giant energy trader and forced a tightening of regulatory oversight across corporate America.

Mr Skilling, 52, put his arm around his lawyer, Daniel Petrocelli, after his sentence was announced, then sat down and turned to give his sobbing wife, Rebecca, a weak smile across the courtroom. She sat, clothed in black, in the public gallery, alongside the media, former Enron employees and the jury that had convicted her husband.