 |
| |
|
|
Shi Huangdi
|
 |
Pittsburgh, PA
Apr 1999
time: 00:33
|
|
quote:
(CNN) -- Former Enron chief financial officer Andrew Fastow and his wife have agreed to plead guilty for their roles in the accounting scandal that rocked the corporate world and brought down the energy giant, sources with knowledge of the case said Tuesday.
The sources, who asked not to be identified, would not disclose details of the agreement.
It's expected the couple will enter their pleas in federal court in Houston Wednesday, the sources said, adding that any deal could still fall apart.
Fastow spokesman Gordon Andrew refused comment on the report, and the Justice Department had no comment.
Fastow and his wife Lea Fastow have been negotiating with the government for months. An attorney for Lea Fastow said last week the two were trying to get an agreement that would allow one of them to remain at home with their two children while the other was serving prison time.
Andrew Fastow is the highest-ranking executive charged in the Enron scandal, and is the alleged mastermind behind the web of complex accounting deals that led to the energy giant's bankruptcy more than two years ago.
A tentative trial date is set for April 20 for him.
If a plea agreement is indeed reached, Fastow could implicate his bosses, former Enron CEOs Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay, who are still under investigation but have not been charged.
Andrew Fastow was indicted on 78 counts of wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy in October 2002 by a federal grand jury in Houston. A superseding indictment returned last May increased the number of charges against him to nearly 100 counts.
The charges against him allege that he masterminded a series of schemes that hid Enron's debt, inflated profits and allowed him to skim millions of dollars for himself, his family and friends and colleagues.
Lea Fastow, once an assistant treasurer at Enron, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering conspiracy and filing false tax returns for collaborating with her husband in the alleged scheme years after she left the company.
She resigned from the company in 1997, a year before her husband was named chief financial officer.
Lea Fastow is scheduled to stand trial February 10.
Michael Kopper, who worked for Andrew Fastow, was the first Enron executive to plead guilty. In August 2002, he pled guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He also agreed to help investigators.
Kopper agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and pay $12 million in restitution as part of a plea-bargain deal. He was released on $5 million bail. (Full story)
CNNfn correspondent Jen Rogers contributed to this report.
|
 He's going to jail. Let's hope he is able to implicate Lay at last.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Lord Merciless
|
|
We need to get Skilling and Lay into jail and into paying billions.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Cruddy
|
|
Never mind the CFO - will he implicate the CEO or will he do 999 years on Pluto?
(I think he'll deal. Most of us would given the choice).
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
JohnT
|
 |
Capitalist
Mar 1999
time: 00:33
|
|
quote:
Still it is like being in the mafia... |
So I've read. Skilling came to Enron by way of his work at McKenzie, which apparently is a common occurance at that firm. And I can understand it: a job that allows you to evaluate potential employers at their expense, while at the same time allowing you to ooh and ahh them with your wizardry? Almost too good an opportunity to pass up.
In chapter 3 of The Smartest Guys in the Room, the culture of McKinsey is described as follows:
quote:
Operating on the belief that intellectual brawn is more important than practical experience, McKinsey prefers to hire new consultants straight out of places like Harvard Business School rather than from industry itself. In fact, it's hard to think of a place that believes in the value of brainpower more than McKinsey. The firm spends a great deal of time sorting out stars from the merely superbright; perhaps not surprisingly, those who prosper there often develop a smug superiority. A McKinsey partner once told Forbes: "We don't learn from clients. Their standards aren't high enough. We learn from other McKinsey partners."... Indeed, the firm likes to think of itself as bringing enlightenment to the business world. McKinsey ideas often sound incredibly compelling, even pure, in a way that makes it impossible to believe they could ever be corrupted. But like Skilling himself, McKinsey partners tend to be designers of ditches, not diggers of ditches. When it comes to executing their lofty theories, well, consultants lean toward leaving those messy realities to the companies themselves. |
Sound familiar?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
MichaeltheGreat
|
|
Apolyton Grand Executioner
|
 |
mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:33
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Cruddy
But Fastow could not have acted without the go ahead from his superior - sure, he could have embezzled a mountain of dough, but to actually structure a whole company takes more than just being the Chief Financial Officer.
I mean, you sound like "The S.D killed all the Jews in the Holocaust" and then totally ignoring Hitler's role. Factually it's true (Hitler didn't work light his own gas ovens) but it over simplifies responsibility. |
Ken Lay (I've known him casually since the mid-'80s) is a very hands-off type of manager - like it or not, you don't put a lot of scrutiny on CFO's and COO's, most likely because there's an implied issue that if you have to scrutinize those positions extensively, you have the wrong people in them.
Fastow's deal is a sweetheart deal - although the announcement said 10 years without parole, that will still translate to around 7-8 years served. He is estimated to have gotten about 45 million directly out of these bogus offshore company deals, not counting other money (salary, bonuses, past stock options) that he got while engaged in these criminal activities. He will forfeit less than 24 million, so he's 20+ million ahead, (country club prison time at more then 3 mil per year served, not bad, not bad) again not counting his other earnings during that time period.
He's not going to be hurting, compared to the cost of trial, a much stiffer minimum sentence even with a Motion for Downward Departure under the FSG, and trial would provide evidence for a much greater asset forfeiture.
Lay and Skilling's lawyers (and Lay would have a much better chance with this) will try to skin Fastow alive as a dirty witness, precisely because he got such a good deal for his testimony - and the picture their defenses will paint is that Fastow only got that deal because he promised to deliver his higher ups. Unless there's a lot of corroboration, I'd expect Lay, and possibly Skilling as well, to beat any charges that result primarily from Fastow's testimony, unless they plead to a Lea Fastow style handslap because it's cheaper than trial and runs less jury risk.
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:33.
Apolyton Time is 00:33. |
top of page
|
| archivepost |
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
14-01-2004 09:51
.
|