By Shaheen Pasha, CNNMoney

HOUSTON (Oct. 23) – Former Enron Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling, who gained infamy as the man who orchestrated the largest corporate fraud in history, was sentenced to more than 24 years in jail Monday.

In addition, Judge Lake denied defense attorney Daniel Petrocelli’s request to lower the sentence by 10 months in order to allow Skilling to serve his sentence at a lower security- level penitentiary.

More than 4,000 Enron employees lost their jobs – and many their life savings – when the company declared bankruptcy in December 2001. Investors lost billions.

Enron’s collapse marked the first of the high-profile corporate scandals that rocked the nation after the 1990s economic boom, followed by WorldCom, Global Crossing, Adelphia and Tyco. The wave of fraud led to passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley law that tightened oversight of how American companies are audited.