Washington: Former Enron treasurer Ben Glisan was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud, becoming the first Enron official to go to jail over the accounting scandal.

Glisan also agreed on September 10 to forfeit $ 1.3 million to the government, including monies he made off improper investments in side-deals, in federal court in Houston, Texas.

The plea comes as federal prosecutors are reportedly trying to intensify their probe and decide whether they have sufficient evidence to charge two former Enron chief executives, Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling.

Leslie Caldwell, the government's Enron Task Force chief, declined to comment on other aspects of the probe but said the plea agreement with Glisan "sends a strong message to other people".

Enron executives "will see that someone is now actually, physically sitting in prison as a result of what they did at Enron", she told reporters.

The 37-year-old Glisan, who served as treasurer from spring of 2000 until he was fired in October 2001, left court in shackles and was transported to federal prison.

The Houston-based energy trading company, once the seventh-largest US company, collapsed in December 2001, after the disclosure of myriad accounting schemes that hid billions of Dollars in debts.

Agencies