Jurors in the fraud trial of former Enron bosses Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling entered a second day of deliberations yesterday in a case prosecutors described as a simple matter of truth and lies.

Judge Sim Lake gave the jury 55 pages of instructions on how to make their decision, a process legal experts predict could take up to two weeks.

Mr Skilling faces 28 counts, and Mr Lay six, of manipulating Enron's finances and lying to investors about the company's health in order to enrich themselves.

Enron collapsed in 2001 with the loss of 5,600 jobs, $60 billion (€46.78 billion) in market value and more than $2 billion in pension funds. Mr Lay and Mr Skilling could face more than 25 years in prison if convicted.

At the end of his closing argument, prosecutor Sean Berkowitz held up two charts, one with the word "Truth" printed in black on a white background, the other with the word "Lies" in white on a black background.

"You get the final word in this historic case. You get to decide whether they told truths or whether they told lies. Black and white," he told the jury.

Prosecutors sought to condense 15 weeks of testimony into a narrative of deception by Mr Lay and Mr Skilling, remarking that the defendants were evasive in the witness box and were unable to recall key issues more than 200 times.

"If what you heard in these past four months is business as usual in corporate America, ladies and gentlemen, I would suggest we all take our money out of the stock market and never put a nickel back in," Mr Berkowitz said.

He said that Mr Lay and Mr Skilling continued to deceive investors and employees into believing that Enron had a secure future while they themselves were quietly selling shares in the company.

"These men lied. They withheld the truth. They put themselves in front of their investors, and I'm asking you to send them a message that it's not all right. You can't buy justice, you have to earn it," Mr Berkowitz said.

Defence lawyers claimed that prosecutors coerced lies from former Enron executives in return for lighter sentences and had concocted a case against the innocent Mr Lay and Mr Skilling.

The defendants claim that they were unaware of the fraudulent activities that contributed to Enron's collapse and had relied on advice from the company's accountants and financial experts.

"There's no story!" yelled Daniel Petrocelli, Mr Skilling's lead lawyer.

Defence lawyers appeared to be hoping for a hung jury, pleading with jurors who believed Mr Lay and Mr Skilling to be innocent to hold out for a full acquittal on all charges.

Even if the two men are only convicted on a few of the charges, they could still spend the rest of their lives in jail.

Prosecutors received a boost when the judge told jurors that ignorance of a conspiracy does not count as ignorance if it was deliberate.

"You may find that a defendant had knowledge of a fact if you find that the defendant deliberately closed his eyes to what would otherwise have been obvious to him... Knowledge can be inferred if the defendant deliberately blinded himself to the existence of a fact," he said.

Even if he is acquitted on fraud charges, Mr Lay could still face jail in a separate trial that started yesterday on four personal banking charges of misusing loan money from three banks.

At Mr Lay's request, the verdict in that trial will be decided by US District Court Judge Sim Lake without a jury.

Each of the four counts of bank fraud and false statements carry potential prison terms of up to 30 years and a fine of $1 million.

Those penalties are in addition to the decades in prison he could face if convicted in the fraud and conspiracy trial that went to the jury on Wednesday.