Skilling could have blamed it all on Lay whether Lay was alive or not.
But Skilling's strategy has always been to lay the blame at the feet of Andrew Fastow.
Fastow was far and away the worst person in the whole Enron story - but he turned state's evidence and got a maximum of 10 years in prison. And that's a sentence he doesn't have to serve until the whole Enron investigation is over years from now and which will probably be subject to early release.
Had Lay not died yesterday, he would have died in prison, and Skilling may well die in prison himself.
The more one looks at the evidence, it seems that Fastow was the criminal mastermind who thought up the scams, Skilling was the boss who encouraged Fastow to come up with more and better scams, and Lay was the hands-off CEO who had to have known something fishy was going on but who preferred to pursue a policy of see-no-evil-hear-no-evil rather than do his fiduciary duty.
And true to form, Fastow is the one who figured out the best deal for himself.
BINGO!
Ever see this film ?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0413845/
I am so glad you posted that about Fastow. So many people think he was a minor player in all this.
Fastow and his wife cut a deal early in the scandal. In fact it was Fastow who was the mastermind of the intricacies of the various companies. Skilling was president for only a few months and then resigned. He probably realized what a hornet's nest he had got himself into. Lay was the PR guy who was always lobbying Washington.
Andy Fastow is a real snake. He ran to the prosecutor's office first and cut an incredible deal for himself and his wife. He is still sitting on the big fortune but don't look for it in any US bank.
Exactly.