Sentence nears for convicted business exec

HOUSTON (AP) -- The 8-month-old daughter of Jamie Olis, a former midlevel tax executive at Dynegy Inc., could be a college graduate when he gets out of prison. He'll be a few years from qualifying for Medicare.
That's after the 38-year-old former lawyer and CPA will have had more than 20 birthdays inside a high fence topped with razor wire.
Barring an unlikely last-minute approval of an appeal bond from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Olis' life outside the fence is about to end. On Thursday, he must trade business suits for prison-issue khaki pants and shirts at the low-security federal prison for men in Bastrop, Texas, and begin serving his 24-year, four-month sentence for conspiracy and fraud.
Olis was convicted last year of participating in a 2001 scheme to disguise a loan as cash flow to please Wall Street. His case personifies beefed-up federal sentencing guidelines that force double-digit sentences for white-collar criminals whose actions are linked to investor losses of $100 million or more.
"While this is the first one to cause people to kind of gasp, he's not going to be the last," said Preston Burton, who serves on the U.S. Sentencing Commission's practitioners' advisory group.
Olis' co-defendants -- his former boss and a colleague -- cut deals with prosecutors that guaranteed them no more than five years in prison.
Chris Flood, who represents one of four former Merrill Lynch & amp; Co. executives slated for trial next month on conspiracy charges related to a questionable 1999 transaction with Enron, said Olis' fate could prompt defendants certain of their innocence to cut a deal.
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