Category Archives: Enronarama

Former Enron Broadband Services CEO Ken Rice, who has already pled guilty to a charge of fraud for his role in the EBS flimflammery, has been testifying busily for the past couple of days in the trial of five other … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Lots of review for Enron: The Smartest Guys In the Room today. Greg got to see it at the official opening and has some interesting reports from the Q&A session that followed. Ted gives his perspective as a former Enron … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I had the opportunity recently to watch a screener DVD of the documentary movie Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room, based on the book by the same name. It’s a fairly comprehensive and snappy overview of the rise and … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Well, now that the vaunted honest idiot defense has failed and Bernie Ebbers faces a stretch in the Big House, the question becomes How will this affect Kenny Boy? “The Ebbers trial is a bellwether for Lay,” said David Berg, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Sorry, Lea. No early release for you. U.S. District Judge David Hittner said he could find no legal grounds in her lawyer’s motion to have her one-year sentence vacated and replaced with the seven months she’s served for not reporting … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Lea Fastow’s lawyers are asking the judge to cut her sentence short. In a motion made public Wednesday, Mike DeGeurin asked U.S. District Judge David Hittner to vacate her one-year prison term for not reporting personal income from an Enron … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I do so hope that this script was at some point turned into the training video it was intended to be. The script calls for an introduction by “Jeff.” “Here at Enron, we’re in business to make money,” Jeff says. … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Apparently, the new Enron documentary is knocking ’em dead at Sundance. With moonlight drenching the ski slopes outside the theater Saturday night, a collection of about 150 viewers, many with connections to the film, watched the premiere of the nearly … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The trials of Rick Causey, Jeff Skilling, and Kenny Boy Lay will not be moved to another venue. Despite their plea to be tried outside of Houston, a federal judge ruled today that the fate and future freedom of ex-Enron … Continue reading → Continue reading →

No, not a sequel to The Crooked E, but a documentary called Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, based on the book by the same name. The movie, which will have its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Kenny Boy Lay is sponsoring links in order to spread the word of his innocence. The former chairman’s computer-literate litigation team is making use of “sponsored links,” which appear prominently in searches for a word or name in an Internet … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The list of Enron unindicted co-conspirators can be made public. Well, sort of. U.S. District Judge Sim Lake originally accepted the list from the government under seal but defense attorneys asked that it be made public. One hundred and fourteen … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The defense has already made its case to move the Lay/Skilling/Causey trial elsewhere. Now the prosecution has responded. In a 54-page memorandum, the Enron Task Force argued that although ex-Chief Executive Officer Skilling commissioned a poll that showed one-third of … Continue reading → Continue reading →

File this under “Things Enron affected that you didn’t know they affected”. After [Enron]’s collapse, SNAP’s budget fell from $3 million to $2.5 million. […] SNAP (www.snapus.org) has slowly recovered, and now has its largest annual budget ever, $5.5 million, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Oh, the humanity! Federal authorities are investigating whether former Enron Chairman Ken Lay’s wife acted improperly when she had their family foundation sell large quantities of Enron stock just days before the company’s bankruptcy. Mike Ramsey, lawyer for Ken Lay, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Poor Jeff Skilling. Former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling wants his trial moved out of Houston because one-third of area residents polled associated his name with negatives like “pig,” “snake,” “economic terrorist” and the “financial equivalent of an ax murderer.” Skilling’s … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The first Enron trial was an 83% success for the prosecution. A former Enron finance executive and four ex-Merrill Lynch bankers were found guilty of conspiracy and fraud Wednesday while a co-defendant, an ex-Enron accountant, walked onto the sunlit sidewalk … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The prosecution and the defense have had their final say in the Enron “Nigerian Barge” trial, which actually has some former Merrill Lynch employees in the dock. A quick reminder of what’s at stake: Two former Enron employees and four … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Poor Kenny Boy. This is not what he had in mind when he asked to have his trial separated from Skilling and Causey. Ex-Enron Chairman Ken Lay will face two separate criminal trials — one with ex-Chief Executive Jeff Skilling … Continue reading → Continue reading →

What a tangled web. The Fastows, according to the lawsuit filed in 212th District Court, owe [Galveston] county $17,471 on their 3216 Musket Lane home in the posh Pirates’ Cove subdivision. That amount includes penalties, interest and attorney fees. But … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Another Enron guilty plea. A former assistant treasurer at Enron pleaded guilty Tuesday to a charge of conspiracy to commit securities fraud for lying to credit rating agencies. Timothy Despain, 39, faces up to five years in prison. But he … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The prosecution put on its star witness in the Enron Nigerian Barge case yesterday as Michael Kopper testified. Kopper, 39, calmly and thoughtfully explained that in 1997 he and ex-Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow started to divert funds to themselves, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The Chron discusses Kenny Boy’s PR offensive. Prosecutors have started using Ken Lay’s public statements against him in legal filings, leading some experts to suggest the former Enron chairman keep quiet while others insist he should just keep on talking. … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Jury selection has begun for the first actual Enron-related trial, known as the “Nigerian Barge” case. The six people defending themselves in the case over the sale of Nigerian barges will not include high-profile names like ex-Enron Chairman Ken Lay … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I’m trying to make sense of this op-ed piece which ran in the Chron and the WaPo yesterday, in which Kenny Boy Lay claims that there’s a political motive behind his criminal indictment. (It’s also now the sole content on … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The count is now 14. Former Enron Broadband Services executive Kevin Hannon pleaded guilty today to conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud, becoming the 14th former executive to strike a plea bargain with prosecutors. Originally indicted on charges of … Continue reading → Continue reading →

This was bound to happen sooner or later – KenLayInfo.com is online. The only info there so far is a picture of Kenny Boy and a personal note in which he states his innocence “of all charges that Andrew Weissmann … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Anyone keeping count here? I’ve lost track. Mark Koenig, the former head of Enron’s investor relations section, pleaded guilty this afternoon to a charge of aiding and abetting securities fraud and agreed to cooperate with the government. U.S. Judge Ewing … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Kenny Boy Lay and Jeff Skilling made their first joint appearance in awhile, in court. Former Enron Chairman Ken Lay won’t get his requested September trial date. Lay and his former second-in-command Jeff Skilling were in federal court Wednesday for … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Now that Kenny Boy Lay has been officially indicted, his alma mater has publicly considered its options for the economics professorship he endowed, and the $1.1 million donation that came with it (link via Kevin). Today, Chron columnist Loren Steffy … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Kenny Boy says “Try me now!” Ex-Enron Chairman Ken Lay wants to go to trial immediately and alone, possibly without a jury, and he’s ponied up some $15 million to get it done, according to court papers filed Monday. Lay, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Ginger emailed me about this TechCentral Station column in which author Gil Weinrich laments using criminal justice remedies for white-collar crimes. Andrew Fastow is expected to serve a 10-year sentence, and Enron CEO Kenneth Lay could face as much as … Continue reading → Continue reading →

John Forney, come on down! You are the next contestant on Plead Guilty and Promise The Feds You’ll Cooperate! John Forney, 42, of Ohio, is the third official to plead guilty to manipulating electricity prices from Enron’s now-defunct trading office … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Welcome to Club Fed, Ken Rice! Ken Rice, the former head of Enron’s broadband Internet business, became the 11th person to plead guilty to an Enron-related crime when he admitted to a single count of securities fraud this morning before … Continue reading → Continue reading →