So long, Kenny Boy

May 25, 2006

I guess the president won’t be seeing his buddies from Enron for quite a while. Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling were, not suprisingly, found [tag]guilty[/tag] this afternoon.

A federal jury today [tag]convicted[/tag] former [tag]Enron[/tag] Corp. top executives Jeffrey K. Skilling and Kenneth L. Lay of multiple fraud charges, writing a powerful coda to the government’s four-year-old push to hold executives accountable for wrongdoing on their watch.

[tag]Skilling[/tag], 52, and [tag]Lay[/tag], 64, once stood near the pinnacle of American business, as the energy trading powerhouse they created out of a stodgy pipeline company grew to become the nation’s seventh-largest public company. But their fortunes collapsed in a heap along with the business when it declared bankruptcy in December 2001.

Now the two men, who spent millions of dollars in their their defense, face the possibility of spending the rest of their lives in prison.

Enron’s bankruptcy filing cost thousands of workers their jobs, spooked investors into doubting the integrity of the stock market and spurred lawmakers to enact the most significant changes to corporate practices in more than 70 years. The verdict provides a reminder of the need for those changes at the very moment business groups are seeking to overturn them in the courts and within federal agencies.

As CNN explained (with a helpful little chart), Skilling was found guilty on 20 counts of conspiracy, fraud, false statements, and insider trading. He was found not guilty on eight counts of insider trading. Lay was found guilty on all six counts of conspiracy and fraud. In a separate bench trial, Judge Sim Lake ruled Lay was guilty of four counts of fraud and false statements. Both Lay and Skilling could face 20 to 30 years in prison, legal experts say. Sentencing was set for the week of Sept. 11.

They won’t be missed.

And as we speak a bill is making its way through Congress that will repeal Sarbanes-Oxley for public companies under $750mm in capitalization. That would essentially eliminate 80% of public companies from providing the accountability that is necessary to the investing public and their employees.

  • Maybe they’ll get to be cell mates so they can spend the coming years telling each other how innocent they are and there will be someone there who believes them. Obviously, no one else does.

    Their dark cloud is our silver lining. Funny how that works.

  • Enron’s bankruptcy filing cost thousands of workers their jobs, spooked investors into doubting the integrity of the stock market….

    Not to mention scores of employees that lost their life savings because of the stock collapse.

  • Forget them being cellmates together – I want them to become Bubba’s girlfriend. Assuming he likes old guys.

    2 down, the rest of corporate America to go.

  • CB wrote: “Enron’s bankruptcy filing cost thousands of workers their jobs, spooked investors into doubting the integrity of the stock market….”

    Don’t forget the retirees who have to go back to work now that their pensions are gone.

  • Has tradesports.com set the odds yet for a January 2009 presidential pardon of Kenny Boy and Skilling? I’d love to get some good odds on that as it seems like a slam dunk that it’ll happen.

  • Andersen was gone by mid 2002. And 4 years later all I have to say – it’s about freakin’ time.

  • If those folks had their money in 401k’s they would be okay. The problem was that they didn’t, they had it all in a single stock. And they were more or less forced to, while Kenny and Jeffy were free to sell theirs.

    Justice will be served, I hear the Federal Country Club they’re headed to uses low-thread linens in the Dining Room. And they’ll need to make reservations for the Bocci Ball Court instead of just strolling over whenever they please.

  • I think we can bet the farm that W will pardon these guys when in January 2009.

  • i’m not going to celebrate till the appeals are over. isn’t it usually the case that there is a big noise about a conviction like this, and then the corporate criminals appeal and slide out of the brunt of their punishment?

  • Peter,
    Thanks for the correction. I actually had a friend from high school who had worked for Enron starting in the late nineties, and was one of the poor souls who had quite a bit in company stock options.

  • Thanks, Raul. I was going to point out the obvious if no one else did.

    It’s not like Bush is going to have any reputation left to salvage by January 19, 2009.

  • They go from being the smartest guys in the room to the guiltiest guys on the cellblock. Lets hope the judge denies the appeals and that W is too busy trying to save his own ass to try and get Kenny-boy’s out of a sling.

  • Here is proof of how shady the Bush/Enron connection is:

    “The Houston Chronicle
    August 16, 1993, Monday, 2 STAR Edition SECTION: A; Pg. 5
    Clinton takes real vacation

    Vail, Colorado: A tired-looking Clinton, off on his first real vacation since becoming president, seemed reluctant Saturday morning to admit to reporters that he was having a good time. He kept mumbling stuff about health care being the next big ticket item on his domestic agenda. But by evening, he’d had such a good time on the local links with Ford, golf legend Jack Nicklaus and Houston’s own Ken Lay, chairman of the Enron Corporation.”

    Bush had Kenny-boy everywhere.

  • Even the NYT’s is in on the BUSH/ENRON scheme – I hope you can live with youself PIGGY Sulzberger!

    “The New York Times
    February 19, 1995, Sunday, Late Edition – Section 3; Page 1; Column 2;
    How Washington Inc. Makes a Sale

    For 18 months, the Indian power-plant deal has floated near the top of the list of 100 or so big infrastructure projects around the world that the United States Government desperately wants American firms to win. It is the first of eight big power generation projects in India, and if the American consortium could close this one, it would create a precedent likely to give other American companies an advantage in billions of dollars of follow-on deals. In years past, American officials would have offered some modest help, but only as a sideshow to bigger foreign policy concerns, from containing Communist influence in South Asia to keeping India and Pakistan from accelerating their nuclear arms race. But that was another era in American foreign policy, before the Commerce Department built what Jeffrey E. Garten, the undersecretary of commerce for international trade, calls “our economic war room.”

    From that Washington war room, the negotiators for the Enron Corporation, the lead bidder in the American consortium, have been shadowed and assisted by a startling array of Government agencies. In a carefully-planned assault, the State and Energy Departments pressed the firms’ case. The American ambassador to India, Frank G. Wisner, constantly cajoled Indian officials. The Secretary of Energy, Hazel O’Leary, brought in delegations of other executives — including some last week — to make the point that more American investment is in the wings if the conditions are right.

    To sweeten the pot, the Export-Import Bank of the United States and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation put together $400 million in financing. And working just behind the scenes, as it often does these days, was the Central Intelligence Agency, assessing the risks of the project and scoping out the the competitive strategies of Britain and other countries that want a big chunk of the Indian market.

    The big push by Washington Inc. paid off last month when the Indian government awarded the power plant project to the American consortium.”

  • And what word stands out to you most in this story?

    REPUBLICAN? I thought so.

    Journal of Commerce
    October 10, 1995, Tuesday SECTION: FOREIGN TRADE, Pg. 3A
    OUTSIDERS CALLED IN TO END LOGJAM ON TRADE AUTHORITY

    Two distinguished political doctors have been brought in to try to revive a nearly dead bill allowing President Clinton to secure new trade agreements with other nations.

    Bill Frenzel, a former Republican member of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Ken Lay, chief executive of natural-gas giant Enron Corp., have been called in to break a year-long impasse that has blocked meaningful progress on trade pacts with Chile, the rest of Latin America, and the Pacific im.

    Both men are well known to one player in that dispute – Ways and Means Chairman Bill Archer, R-Texas, whose district includes Enron’s headquarters in Houston. The two also have connections to the Clinton administration. Mr. Frenzel served as a special adviser to Mr. Clinton to lobby his former colleagues on the North American Free Trade Agreement. Mr Lay has been a friend of Clinton adviser Thomas “Mac” McLarty since Mr. McLarty’s time as head of Arkansas’ largest natural-gas utility.

  • Notice how the word “British” comes up when they talk about BP – that’s because BP stands for British Petroleum which proves this is all about the IRAQ WAR!

    The Houston Chronicle
    August 6, 1997, Wednesday, 3 STAR Edition Business Digest; Pg. 1
    White House warms to BP exec
    The Clinton administration, when calling business leaders to the White House to discuss what the United States’ bargaining position on global warming should be at upcoming negotiations in Kyoto, Japan, chose John Browne of British Petroleum to represent the oil industry. But Browne is British, head of a London-based company. And Britain’s new Labor government has blasted the United States for failing to go far enough to reduce greenhouse gases. So why was a Brit asked to participate? Browne has broken ranks with other oil executives to concede a buildup of carbon dioxide gases may be changing the Earth’s climate. BP also happens to be the United States’ largest crude oil producer with 13,000 employees in this country, company officials pointed out. Enron Corp.Chief Executive Ken Lay, who also was at the Monday meeting, said Clinton sounded Browne out on his opinions of the policies being pushed by the Europeans. Nobody seemed to worry the United States was tipping its hand. “”This is kind of early in the process,” Lay said.

  • Look at the people stepping right from this crooked administration into the ENRON den of thieves.
    Look at the date of this story, uh huh, we all know who was elected President in 2000 don’t we?

    The Washington Post
    October 12, 2000, Thursday, Final Edition A SECTION; Pg. A23;

    Enron Hire Faces Some Partisan Fire

    Enron announced yesterday that Linda Robertson, assistant Treasury secretary for legislative affairs and public liaison will join the Houston energy company in early November as vice president for federal government affairs. She will replace Joe Hillings, who earlier announced his retirement.

  • And don’t forget about Clinton’s chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Elizabeth Moler, joined Enron’s payroll as an anti-regulation lobbyist in 1999 – How can Clinton know about everything everybody does in the entire government?

    She was probably a Bushie plant!

  • And the $964 million Enron hasn’t paid back to the federal Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the Export-Import Bank out of the $1.2 billion the federal government loaned to Enron while Clinton was President is further proof of how bad the Bush/Enron scheme was – even President Clinton was victimized!

    That’s how we can be certain Clinton did nothing wrong.

  • Also don’t forget the $1 million dollars ENRON gave to the Democratic Party to throw everybody off the scent, but WE know the truth, don’t we!

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