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Politics : The Donkey's Inn -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Patricia Trinchero who wrote (1335)	12/8/2001 2:09:03 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 15516

Reuters Finance News Freeze Sought on Enron Executives' Assets Dec 8 11:08am ET By Jeff Franks HOUSTON (Reuters) - Attorneys for a bank suing bankrupt energy trader Enron Corp. asked a federal judge to freeze $1.1 billion in assets belonging to Enron executives on grounds they could flee the country with the money. U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal put off ruling on the matter until later this month, saying she wanted more written arguments from both sides. Amalgamated Bank, which manages worker retirement funds, has charged that 29 Enron executives and members of the board of directors pocketed $1.1 billion in insider trades in recent years when the company allegedly artificially inflated earnings to jack up the stock price. Amalgamated attorney Bill Lerach told Rosenthal his clients had lost more than $10 million in the collapse of Enron and hoped to get some of it back from the now-wealthy Enron executives. He said a freeze on their $1.1 billion would help his clients and those in an estimated 60 other shareholder lawsuits recover their losses. Enron filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sunday after a last-ditch buyout by rival Dynegy Inc. fell through, capping off a stunning corporate collapse that began in October with the disclosure that questionable business deals had been done with outside partnerships run by company executives. MASSIVE CONSPIRACY ALLEGED Stock in what was once the nation's largest energy trader has fallen from a high of $90 last year to $0.75 a share on Friday. Lerach outlined what he alleged was a massive conspiracy of fraud and greed in the executive suites of the Houston-based company. "There was fraud at the top, fraud by the board," he charged in arguments before a courtroom packed with lawyers. "It's worse than any civil fraud case we've ever seen." He said former Enron chief executive Jeff Skilling, who resigned in August after just six months on the job, had gone to Brazil and that former chief financial officer Andrew Fastow, who left the company in October, may have flown to Israel via Canada. "I don't want to accuse people of being a flight risk, but I do want to suggest it could be more than an academic exercise in this case," he said. Attorneys for the two former executives said they were both in the U.S. and not about to leave. They said an asset freeze was unnecessary because there had been no wrongdoing. "To suggest there's a flight risk borders on ridiculous," said Jeffrey Kilduff, attorney for Skilling. Fastow's attorney, Craig Smyser, said no one could feel worse about Enron's fate than his client. "Mr. Fastow is as distraught as anyone else over the tragic demise of Enron," he told Rosenthal. Enron said in a recent regulatory filing that Fastow got $30 million in the murky deals that contributed to Enron's end.

To: Patricia Trinchero who wrote (1335)	12/10/2001 1:37:11 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15516

I feel sorry for the Enron employees who lost their 401K. I wonder if Karl Rove, Bush's assistant, lost money at Enron! He would probably have pulled it out b4 Enron collapsed. Do you recall Rove's personal contacts with Intel?