<<...The plea is the first outward sign of progress in the Enron investigation. Other major companies under investigation, including WorldCom, Arthur Andersen and Adelphia, all have seen executives charged.
Ken Johnson, spokesman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said Kopper is just the first of many executives who will be charged.
"Clearly this is just the first shoe to drop, based on the information our committee has in its possession," said Johnson, who works for committee chairman Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La. "We have a wealth of information in our possession suggesting a number of people at Enron took part in fraudulent activities."...>>
<<...When Houston-based Enron declared bankruptcy last December, it was the largest such filing in U.S. history. Millions of investors lost money and thousands of current and former Enron workers lost the great bulk of their retirement savings.
It also led to the unraveling of Arthur Andersen LLP, the auditing firm convicted of shredding documents to obstruct a Securities and Exchance Commission investigation of Enron's accounting practices.
Former Andersen auditor David B. Duncan is awaiting sentencing for obstruction of justice, and the firm itself has lost hundreds of clients and is shutting down its auditing practice at the end of this month.
Enron's collapse put the Bush administration in an awkward position. President Bush ( news - web sites) has received more than $550,000 from Enron, its employees and their relatives during his political career — the most from any source. He is also a friend of former chief executive Ken Lay.
Attorney General John Ashcroft ( news - web sites) also received significant campaign contributions from the company over the course of his career. Ashcroft has stepped aside from the investigation.
Enron's partnerships were largely financed with Enron stock, even though they were supposed to be independent. An internal Enron investigation concluded that some of the partnerships, created by Fastow, were used to hide debt and inflate Enron's profits by more than $1 billion, misleading investors.
Government investigators are looking into whether Enron managers, from former chairman Kenneth Lay on down, knew that the network of partnerships was being used to conceal huge debts...>>
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