Jeffrey Skilling, the former chief executive of Enron, arrived at the Waseca minimum security prison in Minnesota last night to start a new career as a mattress maker or part-time gardener after failing in an attempt to win bail pending appeal.

Skilling was sentenced to 24 years and four months in jail this year for his part in masterminding the record fraud that brought about the collapse of Enron, the bankrupt energy company.

He was supposed to report to Waseca on Tuesday night, but won an eleventh-hour reprieve after the US Appeals Court agreed to consider his request to be free on bail pending the appeal of his 19 convictions on charges of fraud, conspiracy and insider dealing. The reprieve was shortlived, as the judges took just 24 hours to decide that Skilling should fight his appeal from jail rather than his home in Houston.

The Appeals Court panel did give Skilling some hope that an appeal of at least some of his convictions might bear fruit as they concluded that his conviction contained “serious frailties”. The same court overturned convictions in the “Nigerian Barge” case, which was connected to the Enron collapse and involved Merrill Lynch, the investment bank.

“Yet Skilling raises no substantial question that is likely to result in the reversal of his convictions on all of the charged counts,” the panel concluded.

Skilling’s camp greeted the court’s decisions with mixed emotions. On one hand, the former Enron chief was said to be “devastated” that he must fight on from jail; yet Daniel Petrocelli, his lawyer, said that his team was happy with the reference to “serious frailties”.

Skilling’s appeal is expected to focus on instructions given to the jury by Judge Simeon Lake, who presided over the lengthy trial at the Houston Federal Court.

At one point Judge Lake instructed jurors to find Skilling guilty if they found him to be deliberately indifferent to the wrongdoing at Enron, known as “the ostrich instruction” in legal circles.

Skilling’s sentence is the longest to have been handed down in the Enron affair.

Waseca prison is a low security federal penitentiary of the type known as “Club Fed” for its relatively relaxed rules.

The former Enron chief executive will have to work every day and is expected to start as a machinist in the prison’s textile factory.

The factory, which employs about 200, makes mattresses for use in the prison service, and prison uniforms. The prison also has a landscaping and gardening programme, which is a prime environment that prisoners who display good behaviour are entitled to enter.

Where are Enron fraudsters now?

Kenneth Lay, founder and former chairman: deceased; all guilty verdicts reversed

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