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Non-Tech : The Enron Scandal - Unmoderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Glenn Petersen who wrote (2803)	11/2/2003 10:04:06 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3602

Enron's shell game isn't over ___________________________________ JAN JARBOE RUSSELL SYNDICATED COLUMNIST Sunday, November 2, 2003 If the Enron scandal were an Aesop's fable, the moral of the tale would be: To enjoy a career in crime, follow the letter of the law while investing heavily in those who make and enforce the law. In other words: Keep your backside covered and your wallet open. This is the wily strategy that has been faithfully followed by those at the very top of Enron -- namely, Kenneth Lay, the former chairman, and Jeffrey Skilling, the former chief executive. So far it's worked like Teflon. Two years after Enron went bankrupt and 10,000 of its employees lost their jobs -- as well as $1.2 billion in retirement savings -- the government is not even close to indicting Lay and Skilling. And the word is that prosecutors will probably never indict them. There are several interesting theories about why Lay and Skilling appear to be untouchable. The first one is that the whole mess at Enron is simply too complicated for ordinary mortals -- in other words, jurors -- to understand. I don't buy this theory for a minute. Any 10-year-old understands the concept of a shell game, and that's fundamentally the game that Enron ran. Basically, it went like this: The guys at Enron kept coming up with new ways to shuffle debt around so that debt looked like cash. Enron never had any real cash. It was always an illusion. The second theory is that Lay and Skilling might have been running the company, but they didn't know that anyone below them was doing anything wrong. Why? Because some of the best-paid accountants, lawyers and bankers in the country told them their operations were clean. This has given Lay and Skilling "plausible deniability," a legal tactic available only to those corrupt and wealthy enough to pursue it before their malfeasance is front-page news. The third theory is that key people who worked directly under Lay and Skilling aren't cooperating with government prosecutors because they're betting that the government can't -- or won't -- ever be able to bring a successful criminal case against Enron's top two executives. Ben Glison, Enron's corporate treasurer, is so far the only executive to go to prison. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud and was sentenced to five years in prison but has refused to cooperate with investigators. He's not the only one who won't talk. Despite incredible pressure from the government, Andrew Fastow, Enron's chief financial officer, also remains mute. Fastow, who designed the off-the-book partnerships, has not only been indicted himself, but his wife, Lea, has also been indicted for filing false income-tax returns. Still, Fastow won't deal. Fastow, like Lay and Skilling, maintains that his schemes were legal. After all, Lay and Skilling both told him he was doing a good job; all the accountants and lawyers signed off on it. He, too, has plausible deniability. The X-factor in all this is: What role -- if any -- do Enron's former political connections play in this charade? From the beginning, the Enron case was not pushed from the top. Shortly after Enron filed for bankruptcy in late 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft was forced to recuse himself from the investigation because he had received campaign contributions from Enron. Vice President Dick Cheney was in no position to push. He was too chummy with Lay. After the inauguration in 2000, Cheney met six times with Lay and other Enron representatives to help write the country's energy policy. President Bush himself was also politically compromised by his friendship with Lay, or "Kenny Boy," as Bush once called him. In 1993, Lay and other Enron executives gave $146,500 to Bush's first campaign for governor of Texas. Lay kept the money flowing. He gave money to help pay for the 2000 GOP convention, raised $100,000 for Bush's campaign, helped finance the recount in Florida and helped pay for Bush's inauguration ceremonies. Perhaps these political connections are ancient history and have no impact on the government's current inability to indict Lay and Skilling. Then again: Maybe the shell game is still in progress. ______________________________________ Jan Jarboe Russell is a columnist with the San Antonio Express-News. Copyright 2003 King Features Syndicate. E-mail: jjarboe@express-news.net ______________________________________ seattlepi.nwsource.com

To: Glenn Petersen who wrote (2803)	11/7/2003 8:40:29 AM
From: Glenn Petersen	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3602

Ex-Enron Officer Said To Be In Plea Talks latimes.com Associated Press The wife of former Enron Corp. finance chief Andrew S. Fastow is negotiating a plea bargain with prosecutors, a newspaper reported Thursday. The Houston Chronicle, citing anonymous sources, reported in its online edition that Lea Fastow could appear in U.S. District Court next week to plead guilty and possibly begin a term of at least five months in prison. Lea Fastow, 41, was an assistant treasurer at Houston-based Enron. She is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and filing false tax forms. She is scheduled to stand trial Feb. 10. Her lawyers and a family spokesman declined to comment. The head of the Justice Department's Enron Task Force didn't immediately return a call for comment. When Lea Fastow's indictment was unsealed in May, her attorneys said she had done nothing wrong and was being charged to put pressure on her husband. Andrew Fastow faces 98 counts of money laundering, fraud, insider trading and other charges for allegedly masterminding myriad schemes to inflate Enron's profits, hide company debt and enrich himself, his family and others in the process. He is scheduled for trial April 20. If Lea Fastow was to begin serving a five-month prison sentence this month, her term would be finished when her husband's trial begins. The couple has two young children, and an unidentified Fastow family friend told the newspaper that Lea Fastow's desire to have at least one parent at home was a factor in the discussions.