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To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (47867)	2/21/2002 4:59:37 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

<<cant tell me USA doesnt have royalty>> Some of that 'royalty' should be wearing special suits and preparing to head to prison....Last night I heard a Harvard Business School Ethics Professor being interviewed on The Nightly Business Report --> he claims that in the wake of the Enron Outrage and the Global Crossing scandal we need serious prosecutions...after due process he said THE BEST THING POSSIBLE is for a number of high profile execs to spend some significant time in prison...He contends we need real deterents to motivate people to think twice about fraud, deception, and breaking the laws....I tend to agree.

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (47867)	2/21/2002 5:20:19 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

Andersen execs offer leads on shredding By Flynn McRoberts Chicago Tribune staff reporter Published February 21, 2002 HOUSTON -- Two partners in the Andersen accounting firm's office here have given what plaintiffs' attorneys described Wednesday as a road map to help determine who ordered Enron documents destroyed and why they did it. In depositions taken in a conference room of a Houston hotel this week, partners Thomas H. Bauer and Michael M. Lowther provided a "guide to further information, but we need it from other people," said Roger Greenberg, the lead local counsel for a massive securities-fraud lawsuit against Enron executives and Chicago-based Andersen. So lawyers for the plaintiffs, led by the University of California Board of Regents, plan to use Bauer's and Lowther's depositions to ask the federal judge overseeing the lawsuit to let them depose "a handful" of additional Andersen employees regarding the firm's document destruction and retention policies. "The essential questions--who destroyed what documents and why--we have not received answers to," Greenberg said. "We're going to be asking for people who can testify to that information." The plaintiffs' request for this week's depositions, which are limited to issues regarding destruction and recovery of paper and electronic documents related to Enron, were approved last month by U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon. Harmon also is overseeing a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of Enron retirement plan participants, who notched their own legal victory Wednesday in bankruptcy court in New York as U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Arthur Gonzalez allowed their lawsuits to move forward. Gonzalez lifted a stay on those cases starting June 21 but gave Enron 120 days to argue why the stay should remain in place, according to attorneys involved in the case. The thicket of litigation involving Enron's collapse falls into three categories: the bankruptcy, a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of Enron retirement plan participants and another class action on behalf of Enron shareholders such as pension funds. The Andersen depositions are for the shareholders' lawsuit. Lowther and Bauer were placed on leave after Andersen admitted to shredding documents after the Securities and Exchange Commission began probing Enron's accounting methods last fall. Lowther reportedly remains on staff but was relieved of management duties. David B. Duncan, the fired Andersen partner in charge of the Enron account, also was deposed this week, but he asserted his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination, Greenberg said. Duncan did the same when called before Congress last month. Two other Andersen officials from its Houston office--Michael C. Odom, former risk management partner, and Stephen Goddard Jr., former managing partner--are scheduled to be deposed this week, Greenberg said. They, too, were placed on administrative leave, according to court filings. Nancy Temple, a lawyer at Andersen's Chicago headquarters, will be deposed on March 4, Greenberg said. Temple sent an e-mail to Andersen's Houston office on Oct. 12 spelling out the firm's document destruction policy for auditors. Temple told a U.S. House subcommittee last month that she reminded auditors about the firm's policy for retaining documents but didn't order they be preserved or destroyed after learning the SEC had begun investigating Enron. Asked about the nature of Lowther's deposition, taken Wednesday, and Bauer's, taken Tuesday, Greenberg replied: "We're not doing cartwheels. They've simply provided additional lines on a map that lead to other people from whom we can hopefully get more concrete information." Also Wednesday, a spokesman for the University of California Board of Regents dismissed a report that Andersen had offered a settlement of $260 million out of fear that the Enron scandal could put it out of business. "The university has had no substantive discussions with Andersen" said spokesman Trey Davis. Copyright © 2002, Chicago Tribune

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (47867)	2/21/2002 5:29:09 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

CNN is reporting that the Wall Street Journal reporter is dead. That is really sad. His wife is pregnant with their first child. I was really hoping he would get out of that situation ok. cnn.com IMHO, we need to take the radical Extremist Group that's responsible and make an example out of them -- the CIA should very quietly hire the most brutal mercenaries they know and take out the entire leadership of this Extremist Group...It will be dirty and its better if we outsource the punishment for the assisination of one our journalists. Musharef could help us get intelligence info. behind the scenes...The radical groups in Pakistan (and in other places) need to know that they will pay an extremely high price for murdering our people. Its time for us to take action. I have a hunch that Rumsfeld & Co. will do just that...we'll see.

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (47867)	2/22/2002 12:34:28 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

Cisco might be a good short as it tumbles down into the single digits... Top execs profited from partnerships By CHRISTOPHER BYRON The New York Post February 21, 2002 -- Enron-type questions concerning the financial records of Cisco Systems, Inc. have suddenly got louder. Latest shocker: evidence that more than 12 top officials of the one-time Internet darling may have held undisclosed stakes in a Silicon Valley partnership that benefited greatly from its ties to Cisco during the 1990s. The news comes after The Post's disclosure earlier this week that Cisco's president and CEO, John Chambers, and the company's vice chairman, Donald Valentine, held stakes in a related investment partnership that made a 600 percent profit when Cisco acquired one of its companies, Monterey Networks, Inc., in the autumn of 1999. The partnership in which Valentine and Chambers were involved - Sequoia Capital Partners VII - was created and managed by Sequoia Capital, a West Coast venture capital fund that helped finance a number of technology companies in the 1990s. Previously, Cisco officials insisted that Chambers' stake in the fund was minimal and that his total profit in the transaction equaled the equivalent of roughly $10,000, which he donated to charity. Valentine held a larger stake in the partnership and appears to have thus netted a profit of roughly $313,000 in the deal. But a Cisco spokesman said Valentine did not participate in Cisco's decision to make the Monterey investment. Yet it now turns out that Chambers and Valentine were not the only top Cisco officials who held stakes in lucrative Sequoia partnerships that did deals with Cisco. What's more, in nearly all cases, the partnerships were undisclosed in Cisco filings, raising questions as to whether the company - and its officials - were trying to hide their involvement in the deals. The new evidence has come to light via a search of financial documents filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission by various companies with which Cisco has done business over the years. The search reveals that 11 other top Cisco officials, including the company's chairman, John P. Morgridge, also held stakes in certain Sequoia partnerships. In addition to Chambers, Morgridge and Valentine, the filings show that two other board members - Carol Ann Bartz, an outside director who currently serves as chief executive of an Internet company known as Autodesk, Inc., and Larry R. Carter, Cisco's chief financial officer, likewise held stakes in the partnerships. So did seven senior and executive level vice presidents, including two direct aides to the president and CEO, Chambers. At best, Cisco filings are replete with errors and inconsistencies on a whole range of questions concerning the partnership holdings of Cisco's top officials. Last week a company spokesman acknowledged that the stakes held by Chambers and Valentine have been misstated in Cisco proxy filings since at least 1999, and that even the actual Sequoia partnerships in which the two men held stakes had been identified incorrectly. "We disclosed all required financial information about the holdings of our officers and directors," said a Cisco spokesman. Yet the company declined to list the actual holdings of the individuals involved. A September, 1999 proxy filing by Cisco lists only Chambers, Valentine and Morgridge as holding stakes in Sequoia partnerships. But weeks later, another Silicon Valley company, PMC-Sierra, Inc., filed a stock registration statement that listed the owners of a Sequoia Partnership known as Sequoia International Technology Partners VIII as including the four Cisco board members and six other top Cisco officials. Ten months later, in September of 2000, Cisco filed a proxy statement showing that only Valentine held a stake in the partnership. A search of SEC documents indicates that as many as 12 of Cisco's more than 60 merger deals in the 1990s may have been funneled through Sequoia Capital partnerships. The deals in question had a price - mostly paid for in Cisco stock - of more than $7 billion. Since then, Cisco's share price has collapsed from a split-adjusted $80 per share to less than $17, wiping out more than $450 billion of market value to investors. nypost.com

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (47867)	2/22/2002 8:42:45 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

House Unit to Probe Six Wall St. Firms By Ben White Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, February 22, 2002 NEW YORK, Feb. 21 -- The House Energy and Commerce Committee plans to send letters to six investment banking firms as early as Friday seeking information on their work for Enron Corp. And a committee spokesman said House investigators could seek written responses from as many as six more. The first set of letters, which were being finished today, will go to Citigroup Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Wachovia Corp., Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co., Credit Suisse First Boston Corp. and Dresdner Bank AG. Committee Chairman W.J. "Billy" Tauzin (R-La.) said in an interview that several bankers from these firms could be called to Washington to testify about their experiences with Enron, depending on how the bankers respond to the letters. Among other things, the letters ask the banks to detail any role they may have played in helping to design and market the limited partnerships that a special committee of Enron's board concluded were used to improperly remove debt from the company's balance sheet and present an inflated financial picture to investors. The letters also ask the bankers whether they felt pressured by Enron executives to raise investment capital for the partnerships -- as well as to invest in them personally and corporately -- in exchange for promises of underwriting and advisory business with the energy-trading giant, which is now in bankruptcy. In congressional testimony and in papers released this week by Congress, former Enron treasurer Jeffrey McMahon, now the company's president, said he fielded complaints from bankers who felt pressured to invest in LJM2, one of Enron's off-balance-sheet partnerships. "The letters flow out of those allegations made by McMahon indicating that there seems to have been a little sweet talking going on," Tauzin said. "Others have said there may have been some strong-arm tactics used with [the banks], forcing them to invest [in the partnerships] at peril of losing business." Tauzin also said the letters are intended to give members of Congress a better general picture of the relationships between Enron and the Wall Street investment banks that made tens of millions of dollars over the years by underwriting the company's many stock and bond issues and advising it on mergers and acquisitions. After making millions from Enron, many big banks lost enormous sums as the company collapsed. J.P. Morgan Chase, for instance, has already written off $456 million in trading losses and loans to Enron, and it has exposure of up to $2 billion more. "We are trying to find out how this all works," Tauzin said. "What's the relationships between these corporations, the special-purpose entities and the investment bankers?" The letters also ask whether pressure was applied to analysts at Wall Street's brokerage and investment-banking houses to keep "buy" ratings on Enron stock, even as the company headed toward bankruptcy. All six banks slated to receive letters from the House Energy Committee appear on official lists of investors in the LJM2 partnership, which was run by former Enron chief financial officer Andrew S. Fastow. The list includes a handful of other firms, including Merrill Lynch and Co., the nation's largest brokerage. Merrill Lynch has acknowledged raising $390 million for LJM2 as well as investing close to $20 million, both from the firm itself and from individual employees. Merrill Lynch and other banks have said their involvement with the LJM2 partnership was proper. They have deflected criticism that they may have known more about Enron's precarious financial picture than others but failed to share that information. Merrill Lynch and other banks have also said they would cooperate with any congressional inquiries. Stuart Kaswell, general counsel for the Securities Industry Association, said it was "entirely appropriate for Congress to search for the facts." "I have a great deal of respect for and confidence in my industry and believe the record will show that they acquitted themselves well," he said. Beyond the partnerships, Tauzin said he was also interested in exploring what role Wall Street banks may have played in helping Enron shield its true financial picture through the use of derivative contracts, complex financial instruments whose value is derived from one or more underlying variables, such as the price of a stock or the cost of a commodity. "We want to find out whether these investment firms were involved in any improper way in helping Enron hide its debts," he said. © 2002 The Washington Post Company