Kevin Howard, a former vice president of finance at Enron Corporation’s Internet unit, was convicted of falsely reporting millions of dollars in revenue in the year before the energy trader went bankrupt.

A Houston jury yesterday found codefendant Michael Krautz, a former accounting director, not guilty. Mr. Krautz, 37, and Howard, 43, faced the same five charges: one count of conspiracy, three of wire fraud and one of falsifying business records.

Mr. Howard’s conviction may validate the government’s decision to prosecute five Enron Broadband Service defendants in smaller groups after a three-month combined case in 2005 ended with a mixture of mistrials and acquittals.

“This verdict follows an interesting pattern,” a former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission attorney, Jacob Frenkel, said. “In Kozlowski, Quattrone, and now Broadband, the government does not win the first time around, retools its presentation and comes away with a guilty verdict.”

Frenkel was referring to L. Dennis Kozlowski, the former chief executive officer of Tyco International Limited, and Frank Quattrone, a former managing director at Credit Suisse Group whose conviction in a second trial was overturned on appeal.

U.S. prosecutors have now won convictions or guilty pleas in 24 of 27 completed Enron cases, with seven unresolved. Mr. Krautz’s acquittal is the second in a trial. The conviction of accounting firm Arthur Andersen was reversed on appeal. Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, onetime Enron Corporation top executives, were convicted last week.