Houston ? A former Enron Corp. treasurer pleaded guilty Wednesday to a federal conspiracy charge and became the first executive sentenced to prison in the scandal that toppled the energy company.

U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt sentenced Ben Glisan to five years in prison on a conspiracy charge, the maximum term allowed.

Prosecutors said there was no deal to implicate higher-ranking executives such as Enron’s former chairman Kenneth Lay and former chief executive Jeffrey Skilling.

Glisan, 37, will be under supervised release for three years after completing his prison term. He also agreed to forfeit nearly $1 million in profits from a partnership investment related to Enron and agreed to not seek a refund of $412,000 in income taxes he paid on that profit.

“I think I would simply like to say I take full responsibility for my actions,” Glisan told the judge.

Twenty-three other counts against Glisan were dismissed.

About three hours after the court appearance, Glisan, with chains around his ankles, his tie removed and his suit coat draped over his wrists, was led by marshals from the downtown courthouse and into a sedan that drove away with its police lights flashing. There was no immediate word on what prison he would be assigned to.

Glisan earlier had pleaded innocent to charges of money laundering, wire fraud and conspiracy as part of a 109-count indictment against his one-time boss, former Enron finance chief Andrew Fastow.

Glisan, a managing director, was the second former Enron executive to plead guilty in the scandal. Another managing director, Michael Kopper, who was once one of Fastow’s top lieutenants, pleaded guilty in August 2002 to money laundering and conspiracy and remains free while cooperating with investigators.

Former Enron Corp. treasurer Ben Glisan is led from the federal courthouse in Houston. He was sentenced Wednesday to five years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy.

Prosecutors said Glisan wasn’t working with them. But they said other targeted executives should take note of his prison term.

“He was viewed as one of the whiz kids at Enron. The fact that he now admitted he created a fraudulent way for Enron to hide things off its books I think will send a somewhat chilling message to other people,” said Leslie Caldwell, head of the Justice Department’s Enron Task Force.

Glisan admitted conspiring to falsify Enron’s financial results to show the company was more successful than it actually was.

The Justice Department, in a statement from Washington, called the scheme a “deliberate fraud designed to remove unfavorable information from its publicly reported financial results.”

Glisan was fired in November 2001, less than a month before Enron went bankrupt, when an internal probe revealed he gained the $1 million from a $5,800 investment in one of several complex deals at the heart of the Justice Department’s case against the Houston company.

Early last year, Glisan and his legal team tried to strike a deal with the Justice Department and avoid prosecution by telling what he knows about the financial details.

On May 1, prosecutors filed a superseding indictment that expanded the 78-count indictment against Fastow to the 109 counts to include Glisan, among others.

Just last week, Hoyt ruled Fastow would be tried separately next year from his two co-defendants, setting Fastow’s trial for April 20, Glisan’s for July 20 and former finance executive Dan Boyle’s for Aug. 17.

Hoyt said the trials were split partially because of the discrepancy in the number of counts against Fastow in comparison to his co-defendants, “as well as the impact that such evidence may have on a jury.”

Boyle has pleaded innocent to two counts of conspiracy.

Fastow has pleaded innocent to fraud, money laundering, insider trading and other charges for allegedly masterminding schemes and partnerships to enrich himself, his family and friends at the expense of Enron and its investors.

Prosecutors have frozen about $23 million held in bank and brokerage accounts by Fastow, his family and others. More than $900,000 of that is in an account in the names of Glisan and his wife, Barbara.

Kopper said in court papers he helped Fastow run shady partnerships that lined their pockets with millions at the expense of the company.

Kopper quit Enron in July 2001 to run one of those partnerships. As part of his plea agreement, he surrendered $11.8 million in ill-gotten gains.