In the age of Enron, being duped is now all the rage

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© St. Petersburg Times
published March 1, 2002

Dupe: to deceive with trickery; a person easily fooled. -- Webster's Dictionary.

We was duped!

In the recent flood of "It's-not-my-fault" confessions over the collapse of Enron and other faltering businesses, take note of the exploding popularity of the word duped.

Four Wall Street analysts, the supposed watchdogs of Enron for investors, spent Wednesday before a Senate panel saying they were duped like everyone else about the energy company's finances -- even as they kept issuing "buy" and "strong buy" recommendations.

"I never duped (Enron chairman) Ken Lay," ex-Enron chief executive Jeff Skilling told a Senate panel Tuesday.

Enron whistle-blower Sherron Watkins said in testimony she believes Lay was duped by Skilling and Enron ex-chief financial officer Andrew Fastow.

Outside accounting Arthur Andersen claims it was duped by misinformation from Enron into approving its arcane financial deals.

Enron director and audit committee chairman Robert Jaedicke, an accounting professor emeritus at Stanford University and former dean of its graduate business school, told congressional investigators that Enron executives duped board members and withheld key information.

Enron employees, whose 401(k)s were stuffed with company stock, were duped by Lay's promises last fall that Enron was sure to rebound.

Even investors who lost money on Enron are angry because they were duped.

For a company that rose so rapidly to become one of the nation's top 10, that's a whole lot of duping.

But in what is fast emerging as the Year of the Dupe, Enron has plenty of company:

At the now-bankrupt Global Crossing, now beset with SEC and FBI investigations into questionable deals that potentially inflated the company's revenue and stock price, many employees say they feel they were duped.

In Florida, federal regulators accuse backers of self-described television psychic "Miss Cleo" of using deceptive TV ads to scam as much as $360-million from hotline callers. Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth said his state wanted fines of up to $10,000 per incident plus refunds to customers who were duped.

The federal government this week acknowledged mismanaging the trust system that collects and distributes royalties to American Indians. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said he had been duped by Interior Department officials into believing reform was working.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accused his political enemies of trying to turn the U.S. government against his rule. "I am sure that the organs of power in Washington are not going to let themselves be duped or manipulated," he said.

Fading action hero Sylvester Stallone filed a $17-million suit against his ex-business manager who, Stallone says, duped the actor into hanging onto his Planet Hollywood stock, even as the theme restaurant's share price tanked and the company went bankrupt.

Hey, even the classic first-grader's excuse ("the dog ate my homework") seems in need of an update. "Teacher, I was duped into forfeiting my homework to an omnivorous canine."

Can't anyone accept some accountability? Have we become a world of dupes?

ENRON, THE SOAP OPERA: Amid all the controversy over Enron's bogus financial partnerships, some senior company managers were apparently also busy with personal partnerships.

The Washington Post says that after divorcing his first wife, former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling took up with an Enron secretary whom staffers called "Va Voom" behind her back. Now Skilling's engaged to Rebecca Carter (a k a Va Voom), who under Skilling was promoted to executive secretary to Enron's board of directors at a salary of $600,000. And Enron executive Lou Pai, who cashed out more than $300-million in Enron stock, reportedly indulged his second wife (whom he met in a strip club) and her passion for fine horses by purchasing a 77,500-acre ranch in Colorado . . .

MAYBE 2 PLUS 2 CAN EQUAL 5: "Slight-of-hand and revenue reporting strategies." "Nine ways to say earnings -- which is the best?" Are these phrases from an Enron guide to accounting? Or maybe Global Crossing's internal tips to phony figures? Actually, these are actual courses provided in an accounting seminar put on by the National Center for Continuing Education -- in Tallahassee.

What a coincidence! While Enron's collapse will cost the Florida state pension fund hundreds of millions of dollars, an organization in our state capital is training accountants with "50 tricks and traps of managed earnings that you need to know to excel at your job and stay out of trouble." . . .

-- Robert Trigaux can be reached at trigaux@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8405.

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