I know I'm naive, but can someone explain?

[Snowflake]

Okay, I'm generalizing here. The Enron people, the power brokers and the people who affect thousands of people by trashing their savings, incomes/jobs and their homes get off scot free or make plea deals. They serve little or no time and still have billions and all those people start over again.

There there is poor dumb a$$ Survivor I winner Richard Hatch who gets 51 months for his income tax evasion and perjury. He did this to himself, he blew his own plea deal, but he only harmed himself.....

Story here

Never ceases to amaze me.

[scaeagles]

The Enron case isn't over yet, is it?

I am often amazed that the bigger the fraud, the better the defense team, and the smaller the penalty.

While I support the "innocent until proven guilty" philosophy, all too often lawyers and our legal system resemble the Sophists of the Greek judicial system.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

I feel you, Snowflake. I'm fully of the opinion that lawyers should be doled out fairly, without big money being a factor. That along with my "no lobbying under any circumstances" point of view are stars in my "snowball's chance in hell" world view.

[Snowflake]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

The Enron case isn't over yet, is it?

I am often amazed that the bigger the fraud, the better the defense team, and the smaller the penalty.

While I support the "innocent until proven guilty" philosophy, all too often lawyers and our legal system resemble the Sophists of the Greek judicial system.

No, Enron is not over yet. Not that I am paying all that much attention. As I said, I was generalizing.

You're right, the more $$ you invest, the smaller the penalty. Sad.

[Alex]

First of all, are you aware enough of the details in Enron to know for sure what crimes were committed?

Andy Fastow is the only person in the Enron executive team that out-and-out stole money. That is why he quickly rolled. He had no defense.

The problem with Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling (and the dozens of other people who involved at the executive layer) is that when you look very closely what you find is mostly very bad management, and bad management is not illegal (though it may open you to civil liability). To prove criminality mostly requires proving what was in their minds when at the time. Did Ken Lay boost the stock because he honestly thought things were going great? Or did he boost the stock because he was intentionally masking grievous problems. There is plenty of evidence that Ken Lay should have known about the flaws in the accounting but very little that he did know.

A lot of the crimes committed were through imaginative use of legal methods of accounting. The deals were so many and so complex that frequently nobody actually knew the entire structure (though some should have) and everybody would sign off on their little piece. It was then made more difficult by the fact that the one person committing overtly illegal acts (Andy Fastow) was the one responsible for assuring the other top executives of their legality.

Richard Hatch's crime was relatively straighforward.

If you're really interested in exactly what happened with Enron (and many of the supposed facts aren't true, such as the story that executives froze employee investment accounts to prevent them from dumping shares) I suggest reading two books that between them pretty well bracket the issue:

Kurt Eichenwald's (New York Times reporter covering Enron) Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story that lays out events that pretty much absolve of Skilling and Lay of overt criminal behavior (though quite possibly a level of incompetence that becomes criminal).

The other is The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron by Fortune writers Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind. This one is a bit less kind to Lay and Skilling.

While you may not think it enough, Andy Fastow plea-bargained down to 10 years in prison. That is still quite a lot and would have been much more but the politics dictated that prosecutors needed to go after Lay and Skilling something strong, even if the cases against them are much more difficult to prove.