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Enron Exec goes to jail, Jon Carroll loses bet
Posted by: Jon Henke on Monday, October 09, 2006

Two and a half years ago, I thought I'd caught San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll on the losing end of a bet. In January of 2002, Carroll wrote:

I am putting up $100 right here, payable to Doctors Without Borders; I am betting that not a single Enron executive will spend a day in jail. Not one, not ever.

I pointed out in an email to Jon Carroll that Andrew Fastow had been sentenced to jail, but Carroll responded that he hadn't actually gone to jail yet. And he was right...Andrew and his wife, Lea Fastow, had been sentenced to non-concurrent prison terms, in order that would "allow one of them to remain at home with their two children while the other is serving prison time".

Jon Carroll didn't have to pay up. Yet.

Now, that has changed.

Andrew Fastow, the former Enron Corp. finance chief ... began a six-year prison sentence last week for his role in the fraud that destroyed the company...

Meanwhile, Jeffrey Skilling is awaiting an October 23rd sentencing date and Ken Lay avoided prison by dying.

It's a small thing, but the notion that the Bush administration was 'protecting' Enron execs was always ridiculous, though the exceedingly complicated nature of the case made it difficult to disprove Carroll's suspicions quickly. I'm glad the question can finally be answered. Mr. Carroll — who is, I'm sure, a fine fellow — will be getting a friendly email from me.

Jon Henke is the New Media Coordinator for the George Allen Senate campaign.

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I assume Carroll is of the left-wing type who extoles the virtues of the due diligence process. I assume, like Lou Dobbs, he didn’t seem to realize that the prosecution would take years.

Written By: whatever
URL: http://

Lea Fastow worked at Enron, so you could have collected when she went to jail.

Written By: steve
URL: http://

Hello,

This is a great blog. I’m going to be sure to link yours to mine. Would you mind doing the same for me?

Thank you very much.

My site:
www.americanlegends.blogspot.com
Take care,
Mark

Written By: J. Mark English
URL: http://www.americanlegends.blogspot.com

Wow! 4 people go to jail in the Enron Scandal.

Four..yup, that should cover it! Justice served.

Remember, presidential pardons are coming up on Jan 21, ’09.

/pathos

Written By: Rick D.
URL: http://

presidential pardons are coming up on Jan 21, ’09.

like Mark Rich?

Written By: capt joe
URL: http://

Wow! 4 people go to jail in the Enron Scandal.

So tell us, how many people should have been prosecuted?

Written By: JWG
URL: http://

Andy Fastow should have been prosecuted for fraud involving the off-balance sheet entities he set up and fraudulently represented as being truly independent.

Maybe one or two execs for selling Enron stock in advance of bad news.

And that is about it.

Lay and Skilling were charged with fraud relating to activities that had nothing to do with Enron going under. Enron went under when the credit markets freaked out after learning of Fastow’s fraud... and not as a result of anything Lay or Skilling did. Without Enron’s collapse, all Lay and Skilling would have likely received was a fine and forced resignations. It was only because Enron went under that the prosecutors (politically motivated, as well as knowing that convictions would increase their value in the private sector) went after Enron executives... first, the lower level ones, then, with their help, Lay and Skilling.

And Lea Fastow went to prison for tax crimes which her own husband testified she knew nothing about.

All in all, a great day for prosecutors (insert sarcasm here).

Written By: steve sturm
URL: www.thoughtsonline.blogspot.com

I wonder if anybody from CALPERS, the Export-Import Bank, FERC, the SEC or any of the numerous other government agencies that conspired with Enron will be punished? No, most of them were handed MORE power as a result, the SEC being the poster child for this turn of events.

Isn’t it rather odd that the administration that continually told Ken Lay "yes" to every scheme he cooked up (and enlisted the power of government to help with favorable loans and regulations) gets off scott free while the administration that told him "no" gets the blame?

Isn’t it odd that one of the greatest proponents of government regulation, the strongest supporter of the Kyoto treaty in the entire business community, and one of the most notorious pigs at the government subsidy and interest-free loan trough, has continually been portrayed as a laissez faire capitalist behemoth run amok in an unregulated market space?

Anybody who thinks that there is no longer a liberal bias in the media has not witnessed the Enron fiasco.

Written By: DS
URL: http://

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