Neither of you Pontificates...
I cannot speak for Ray, but my family and friends will not allow me to pontificate in the real world. SI has to serve as an inadequate alternative. I would ask "What's your excuse", but you might take that as a hostile act. :)
Lea Fastow is abandoning her children:
msnbc.msn.com
Lea Fastow given one-year prison term
Sentence is result of guilty plea to misdemeanor tax charge
The Associated Press
Updated: 12:37 p.m. ET May 06, 2004
HOUSTON - The wife of former Enron Corp. finance chief Andrew Fastow pleaded guilty Thursday to helping her husband hide ill-gotten income from some of his myriad financial schemes and was sentenced to the maximum of one year in prison.
U.S. District Judge David Hittner turned aside pleas to give Lea Fastow only a few months in prison on the misdemeanor conviction of filing a false tax form. The plea came after months of legal wrangling.
Hittner gave her no fine but placed her on a year of supervised release once the sentence is completed.
Enron which imploded into bankruptcy in late 2001 amid a series of questionable financial transactions. The collapse cost thousands their jobs and erased the investments of thousands more who owned its stock. Lea Fastow was a former assistant treasurer there.
Enron’s former chief financial officer pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud on Jan. 14, 2004. The plea calls for him to serve a 10-year prison term and help prosecutors in their investigations of other Enron executives. Under the deal, numerous other counts against Fastow will be dismissed if he fulfills the terms of the plea agreement, including forfeiting $23.8 million of his assets. Prosecutors had accused Fastow of making millions of dollars through elaborate partnerships he created at the expense of the company and its shareholders. Fastow, who holds an MBA from Northwestern, joined Enron in 1990 and became a close associate of CEO Jeffrey Skilling, who named him CFO. Fastow is credited with setting up the off-the-books partnerships that benefited Enron by hiding debt and inflating revenue. He was dismissed from the company on Oct. 24, 2001.
Enron’s former treasurer pleaded guilty to conspiracy in September 2003 and became the first former Enron executive put behind bars. Glisan joined Enron in 1996 and was fired in February 2002. He had earned $1 million on a $5,800 investment in one of the company’s partnerships. Prior to working for Enron, Glisan worked for Coopers & Lybrand accounting firm in Dallas and Arthur Andersen in Houston.
Accounting firm Arthur Andersen’s former top Enron auditor pleaded guilty in October 2002 to obstruction of justice and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. Duncan admitted that he ordered Enron-related documents shredded two days after learning of a federal probe.
Former chief executive officer, was indicted Feb. 19, 2004, and charged with leading a scheme to mislead the government and investors about Enron's financial condition. The highest-ranking Enron official to face charges, he has pleaded not guilty to all counts and is free on $5 million bail. Skilling, a former McKinsey & Co. consultant with a Harvard MBA, joined Enron in 1990. He quickly rose up the corporate ladder, transforming the Houston firm from a pipeline company to an operation involved in trading energy and other commodities. He succeeded Ken Lay as CEO in 2001 and resigned after less than seven months, citing personal reasons. The company collapsed only a few months later.
Vice chairman of Enron and a close friend of CEO Jeffrey Skilling, he resigned from the company in May 2001. Eight months later Baxter was found dead in his wife’s Mercedes after committing suicide. He was believed to have been deeply depressed by the company’s collapse. Whistle-blower Sherron Watkins, in her memo to Chairman Ken Lay, had noted that Baxter had complained to Skilling about the “inappropriateness of our transactions" with one of the company's off-the-book partnerships.
Enron’s former chairman and CEO has not been charged. Lay, who holds a doctorate in economics, was the early architect of the energy trading company, building it through mergers in the 1980s. A longtime associate of the Bush family, Lay was nicknamed "Kenny Boy" years ago by President Bush and became a major contributor to Bush's campaigns for governor and president. He stepped down as CEO in February 2001 but returned briefly later in the year as the company was collapsing.
On April 7, Fastow withdrew her guilty plea after a judge balked at a sentencing deal that would have sent her to jail for a maximum sentence of five months. Fastow, Enron's former assistant treausurer and wife of former CFO Andrew Fastow, had pleaded guilty to one count of filing a false tax return on Jan. 14.
Former Enron chief accounting officer arrived at the company in 1991 after a career with accounting firm Arthur Andersen. Causey has linked Skilling to the Enron partnerships that hid millions of dollars of losses. Charges against Causey have been expected since his name was mentioned in the October 2002 criminal complaint against Andrew Fastow.
An Enron vice president who met with and wrote a memo to Ken Lay describing accounting irregularities, she was the key whistle-blower of the scandal. Watkins co-authored the book "Power Failure: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Enron," about her experiences at the company.
Both prosecutors and defense lawyers had urged Hittner on Thursday to show leniency and limit Lea Fastow’s prison confinement to five months, with another five months of home confinement, to minimize her time away from the Fastows’ two young children.
Her case was part of a global deal that included a plea agreement for Andrew Fastow. He pleaded guilty in January to two counts of conspiracy, admitting to running widespread schemes and partnerships to make Enron appear financially healthy while enriching himself at the company’s expense on the side.
He agreed to relinquish nearly $24 million in cash and property, serve the maximum 10-year prison sentence on two counts of conspiracy and help prosecutors pursue other cases. His help led to subsequent indictments of former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling and former Enron top accountant Richard Causey.
Lea Fastow had originally pleaded guilty to a felony tax crime in January, admitting to hiding shady income from the government by disguising it as gifts, in exchange for a sentence of five months in prison and five months of home confinement.
Hittner rejected the plea agreement, saying he refused to be bound by the sentence her lawyers had worked out with prosecutors. Hittner said he wanted to consider the 10 to 16 months called for by federal sentencing guidelines.
Hittner’s decision left Lea Fastow with the choice of accepting a longer sentence or withdrawing her guilty plea. She withdrew her plea and Hittner scheduled a June 2 trial on her six original felony charges — four counts of filing false tax forms and two counts of conspiracy.
Then, last week, prosecutors wiped out those counts and filed the single misdemeanor charge.
A judge Thursday sentenced the wife of former Enron Corp. finance chief Andrew Fastow, to 12 months in prison.
Earlier Thursday, Lea Fastow, a former Enron assistant treasurer, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor tax charge.
Fastow entered her plea before U.S. District Judge David Hittner.
She told the judge she was guilty of submitting an income tax return that did not include money her family received from her husband's secretive partnerships
It was the second time Fastow had gone before Hittner to agree to a plea bargain. The first one collapsed on April 7 after Hittner refused to stick with a five-month prison term prosecutors recommended and Fastow pulled out of the deal.
Lea Fastow last year was charged with six felony conspiracy and tax counts by the U.S. Justice Department's Enron Task Force, as they tried to persuade her husband to cooperate with their investigation into the bankrupt former energy giant.
Andrew Fastow pleaded guilty to separate charges and will serve a 10-year prison term after he finishes cooperating with prosecutors.
© 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
