June 9 (Bloomberg) -- Former Merrill Lynch & Co. executive James A. Brown, fighting attempts to retry him for his alleged role in an Enron Corp. scheme, asked the U.S. Senate, the Justice Department and state bar authorities to investigate his claims of misconduct by a federal prosecutor.

Brown claims a prosecutor in his case wrongly withheld exculpatory evidence and knowingly misled the judge and jury in his November 2004 trial. He was charged with helping Enron inflate its 1999 earnings through the sham sale of Nigerian electricity-generating barges to the investment bank.

Brown, Merrill's former head of strategic asset and leasing, was convicted of wire fraud and conspiracy. A federal appeals court in New Orleans threw out fraud verdicts against Brown and three other men in August 2006, ruling that prosecutors used a flawed legal theory in obtaining their convictions.

``These prosecutors knew but apparently were unconcerned about the significant evidence that the jury should have heard in support of the defendants' innocence,'' Brown's lawyer, Sidney Powell, wrote today in requests to the government and the regulatory agencies. ``These were not minor omissions, but major strategic decisions'' by the Enron prosecutors, she said.

Brown's request, filed with the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility and bar authorities in Virginia, names Matthew Friedrich, a member of the now-disbanded Enron Task Force. That group investigated the collapse of the world's largest energy trader. More than 5,000 jobs and $1 billion in employee retirement funds were wiped out when Enron plunged into bankruptcy in December 2001 over a vast accounting fraud.

Nominated

Friedrich is special counsel to the U.S. Attorney General and has been nominated to become head of the Justice Department's criminal division. Friedrich didn't immediately return a call to his office.

``The Office of Professional Responsibility has received the complaint, will review the allegations, and act appropriately,'' Justice Department spokesman Erik Ablin said in an e-mail.

``Similar complaints will be forthcoming against other Enron prosecutors'' who participated in the Nigerian barge case, Powell said in an interview.

``In violation of their fundamental ethical obligations, Friedrich and the Task Force prosecutors simply selectively pieced together their own erroneous and misleading version of the 'facts' to portray a crime and then concealed or suppressed the evidence that contradicted that view,'' Powell wrote in requesting that the Virginia State Bar revoke Friedrich's license to practice law.

FBI Notes

Brown said he should've been given pre-trial copies of the extensive notes taken by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents who interviewed convicted former Enron finance chief Andrew Fastow. In the notes, Fastow said he never guaranteed that Enron would repurchase the barges from Merrill at a set profit within six months. Prosecutors said the promise turned the sale into a disguised loan because the bank's money was never at risk.

Fastow also told investigators he lied to subordinates -- some of whom testified at the barge trial -- that he'd promised the bankers a buyout in order to ``light a fire'' under his staff to resell the barges elsewhere.

Fastow's FBI notes were withheld from the Enron barge defendants for five years, until an appeals court ordered the government to turn them over in a related Enron case. The three former Merrill executives convicted with Brown were global investment banking chief Daniel Bayly and vice presidents Robert Furst and William Fuhs.

McMahon Letter

Brown said he was never told of a letter former Enron President Jeffrey McMahon sent the Justice Department after Brown's conviction. In the letter, McMahon insists neither he nor Fastow gave Merrill any repurchase guarantees concerning the barges, Brown claims. McMahon wasn't indicted. Brown said he discovered the letter last year during his own investigation.

Erica Chabot with the Senate Judiciary Committee didn't immediately return a call seeking comment. George Chabalewski, counsel for the Virginia State Bar Association, said the group's policy prevented him from confirming or denying that a complaint had been received.

Brown, Bayly, Furst and Fuhs spent almost a year in prison before they were freed in advance of the appellate court ruling reversing their convictions. Fuhs can't be retried for lack of evidence against him. The other three bankers have appealed their retrial on double jeopardy grounds.

Brown was also convicted of lying to and obstructing the Enron grand jury, and the appeals court didn't overturn those verdicts. Brown has asked for a new trial on those counts, based on the new evidence, even as he asks the government not to retry him on the fraud and conspiracy charges.

Merrill is a passive, minority investor in Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News.

The case is U.S. v. Brown, H-03-063, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas (Houston).

To contact the reporter on this story: Laurel Brubaker Calkins in Houston at laurel@calkins.us.com.

Last Updated: June 9, 2008 17:35 EDT