Enron's Lay May Be Difficult to Prosecute

FoxNews ^ | Friday, February 20, 2004 | AP

[.cnI redruM]

HOUSTON

[.cnI redruM]

Fastow turned over Skilling. Maybe Skilling will finger Lay. Otherwise, Kenny-Boy skips town and keeps the loot. The thought of him and his wife living in splendor, somewhere like Barbados, genuinely churns the stomach.

[Young Rhino]

Ever considered the possibility that the buck stops with Skilling? Fastow had to tell all for his plea agreement. You can be sure that the feds would have hauled in Lay at the same time as Skilling if there was something to prosecute.

Having money is not a crime. Many CEOs have earned wealth while their successors take the companies down the drain.

I do not know Lay, but we had a mutual friend who was dying of cancer last year. In the midst of the media uproar over Enron, Lay went out of his way to comfort the dying friend...never once bringing up his own troubles. For this, he has my respect.

I'll ignore the media mud and wait for the government to prove he has done something wrong.

[proxy_user]

Lay claims to know nothing.

Based on what I've seen, he may be telling the truth.

[The Duke]

If Lay knew nothing - which may well be the case - then it seems that ultimately the fault must "lay" with investors who were stoopid enough to invest in a company that had a dullard in the CEO slot.

[.cnI redruM]

I'm not buying the argument that he knew nothing. What Enron was doing was pretty blatant.

[.cnI redruM]

It may very well be true that a bad person can have redeeming qualities. No one is truly perfect, even in utter depravity.

[Hank Rearden]

Lay sure was well paid for someone who didn't do or know a damn thing.

[.cnI redruM]

Exactly my contention in post #5.

[proxy_user]

Let me elaborate.

First of all, financial swindles tend to follow a common pattern. Very smart guys set up the fraud, and milk it for as long as they can. But if they are really smart, they know it can't last forever. Eventually, someone will notice that billions of dollars are missing.

So at some point, they'll want to get out. Usually you can sell the company to someone who's a chump, or a bigger swindler than you are. Enron was too big for that, so they had to look around for a fall guy. Lay fit the bill, so they made him CEO.

Unfortunately, they waited to long to get out and got caught anyway. I believe their plan was to leave Lay holding the bag. Of course they paid him a lot, he would have been quite valuable if their scheme was successful.

[Endeavor]

If Lay didn't know, he should have. He knew the characters of Skilling and Fastow. Sherron Watkins went directly to Lay and told him what was going on. If Lay is such a good guy, he ought to give up his own wealth to start paying back people who lost everything in Enron.

[MeekOneGOP]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/cartoon/stories/02204dnedideore.14736dfb.html

DeOre cartoon, Feb. 22, 2004

12:01 AM CST on Sunday, February 22, 2004

By BILL DeORE / The Dallas Morning News

[Young Rhino]

I don't believe the media mud-slinging about Bush. I also don't believe it about Lay. Unfortunately, wealth envy causes otherwise rational FReepers to go off the anti-capitalist deep end as to the latter while being outraged at the former.

[Common Tator]

If Lay is such a good guy, he ought to give up his own wealth to start paying back people who lost everything in Enron.

If someone robs the company you work for, then I'm sure you would offer your paycheck to cover the stockholders loss.

I have been president of 4 corporations. In one of which the chief accountant stole a lot of money. It was not found untill an annual outside audit was done. I didn't steal the money. Only the thief was charged with a crime.

The problem for the prosecuters is they can't find any way Lay made any illegal money. It is hard to accuse a man of stealing when he never took anything that was not his.

[paul in cape]

[raybbr]

Forget Lay - we got Martha.

[drypowder]

I was recently involved (as a juror) in a "negligent" litigation case where a company (family owned business/employer) was trying to defend itself by arguing their employee was responsible for a fraudulent transaction (very similar scenario to Enron) against a client where the company did not reap a reward from the act so there-fore was not liable for their employees actions. Guess what, the company lost because the court found that the "Company should have known and had CAUSE to know." Just because the company was admittedly being negligently managed did not exclude it from being liable for an employee who was clearly working as a representative of the company and performing services the company offers. If using the same legal principles (the buck stops with the captain so-to- speak) as the above mentioned company which did not realize a gain from its' employee's illegal actions and still lost their case, it makes sense that Ken Lay is very much responsible for the Enron fraud.

[TRY ONE]

Having some direct and indirect knowledge of what happened there I would say the following:

1) Skilling was the architect and implementer of the "problem"

2) Lay knew about "50%" of what Jeff was up to; yet he held his nose and turned his head.

Hence:

- Skilling is guilty of the Commission of the Sin

- Lay is guilty of the Sin of Omission

[Young Rhino]

The CEO is paid to know what is going on! Mr. Lay is not stupid and he is not blind.

When your top guys are cooking the books, including the CFO, and a Big Four accounting firm is certifying to you as CEO and the SEC that the numbers are correct, why should you have reason to believe that fraud was occurring? Is the CEO of a Fortune 500 company required to conduct his own amateur audit? If so, do you really think that Lay would have discovered what the finance experts were hiding from everyone? Once again, wealth envy strikes the FReepers. Just because Lay has money, doesn't make him guilty of a crime.