Former Enron chief executive Jeff Skilling, one of two top-ranked former Enron executives to avoid the FBI perp walk, finally was taken to court in handcuffs Thursday and charged with 35 counts of fraud and other crimes tied to the collapse of the Houston energy company.
It's about doggone time. Give Skilling his innocence until proven guilty, but let's move quickly now that the grand jury indictments are in. Get this case into the courtroom.
You see, no one is really going to breathe easy - not investors, not employees and not corporate executives - until this astounding Enron scandal has been sorted out.
With Skilling now charged, that leaves only Kenneth Lay, the original architect and now disgraced ex-chairman of Enron, to await the knock on the door from federal prosecutors.
Skilling, 50, insisted again Thursday that he's not guilty of any wrongdoing. And what of Lay? The balding, professorial yet driven energy chieftain was by the late 1990s the capitalist deity in laissez-faire Houston. Lay even earned a coveted nickname - Kenny Boy - from President Bush, who was long appreciative of Lay's generous political contributions through the years.
Lay, 61, will also deny any role in the looting of Enron - if he ever faces charges.
And there's the rub. Amid severe criticism for foot-dragging, federal prosecutors waited to nab Skilling until they felt confident their case would stick. The same pattern holds true when charging Lay, which may happen sometime this spring or summer.
Prosecutors will be under intense pressure to put Skilling and Lay away. What kind of message will America's jilted investors - and the thousands of Enron employees who lost their pensions - hear if Skilling or Lay walks?
It's almost the Super Bowl of corporate ethics. If the top Enron guys win, then it's still open season for executive self-dealing and, fairly or not, a sad sign that the super rich can wiggle out of any legal entanglement.
If they lose and face serious fines and jail time? Maybe that's a signal that this country will stop winking at corporate corruption. Maybe there's some reason for investors to feel a bit more confident when buying the stocks of corporations.
For all the swelling ranks of Enron perps, the flurry of earlier indictments of lesser company executives was the easy part, the warm-up to nailing Skilling and Lay.
Frankly, I've lost track of the dozens of Enron managers, outside auditors and lawyers facing charges. Enron North America CEO David Delainey, Enron treasurer Ben Glisan, Enron financial executive Michael Kopper, Enron accounting officer Richard Causey. They and many others are just blurs on court papers as prosecutors slowly climbed Enron's corporate ladder of fraud.
The breakthrough was nabbing former Enron chief financial officer Andy Fastow on charges of securities fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and engaging in self-enriching financial deals. Five weeks ago, Fastow and his wife, Lea, pleaded guilty. In exchange for helping the government pursue Skilling and Lay, Fastow agreed to a 10-year prison sentence and to forfeit $23.8-million.
Can anyone who has followed the Enron investigation in good conscience believe Skilling and Lay played no part in this empire of cards?
Lay, the son of a poor Missouri preacher, pooled his smarts, political prowess and insatiable urge to become rich to assemble Enron. Until it fell apart in 2001, the fast-growing energy trading firm had gained an international reputation for aggressive management, controversial ideas and sheer arrogance. Obsessed with the benefits of industry deregulation, Enron was often touted as the new corporation of the 21st century.
Skilling, a Harvard MBA who joined the elite McKinsey consulting firm, was hired by Lay in 1990 to help run part of Enron (and eventually become its CEO). Why? Because Skilling, like Lay, wanted Enron to dominate the new world of trading energy - and later water and Internet broadband - as if they were commodities.
Enron's top two execs were vastly different personalities. Lay was a philanthropic schmoozer who won the affection of Houston social circles and Washington politicians. Skilling enforced a cutthroat culture at Enron, one that required department managers each year to rank their staffs and fire the bottom 15 percent of employees.
At one point, Fortune magazine reported, Skilling declared, "I am Enron."
And yet this is the same Skilling who tossed aside the usual executive practice of invoking the Fifth Amendment at a February 2002 congressional inquiry into Enron's collapse. Repeatedly, he testified he was unaware of the massive fraud and accounting manipulations that ultimately would destroy Enron. Skilling's "I know nothing" stand quickly became known as the "Sgt. Schultz" defense, a satirical salute to a favorite line uttered by a clueless character in the Hogan's Heroes TV series.
Ruthless Skilling and empire-building Lay. To many at Enron, they became known as Darth Vader and the Emperor, like the Dark Side leaders in Star Wars.
How fitting. Sometimes it really does come down to a contest between good and evil, right and wrong.
- Information from Times wires was used in this report. Robert Trigaux can be reached at trigaux@sptimes.com or 727 893-8405.
