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Ken Lay is no victim

Ken Lay has no shame. He could have said "I'm sorry" to the tens of thousands of investors who lost their savings in Enron's collapse while he was at the helm. Instead, in a rare public appearance before his criminal trial next month, Lay revealed the real victim in the fall of Enron: Ken Lay.

Speaking recently before a well-heeled crowd at the Houston Forum, Lay said the villains in the Enron case are federal prosecutors, who have hidden the truth in a "wave of terror." Lay apparently equates the deaths of innocent people at the hands of suicide bombers with his indictment in the corporate scandal. Such hubris takes a lot of nerve, but then Ken has plenty of that.

Remember, as Lay and company executives were telling investors to keep buying Enron stock even as the price plummeted, Lay and the other insiders were selling. Lay reportedly sold $90-million worth of stock while hiding the company's true financial situation. Lay's wife made $1.2-million on Enron stock shortly before the company declared its bankruptcy.

Lay even had the audacity to ask former employees to come to his defense. "Either we stand up now and prove that Enron was . . . an honest company, a company that had a vision and values . . . or we will leave this horrific legacy shaped by others," he said, apparently with a straight face. Those are the same employees who were prohibited from selling Enron stock in their retirement accounts as the price neared zero. Since when is ruining loyal employees' retirements a company value?

As a founder and former chairman and chief executive of Enron, Lay is going to have to take responsibility and not pass it off on terrorists or "others." A jury will decide if his actions were criminal. If they weren't, then perhaps Lay was merely arrogant, greedy and unethical. Either way, he's no victim. If this is how Lay is trying to rehabilitate his image before he faces a jury, he has only made matters worse.

[Last modified December 22, 2005, 00:58:15]