Kenny Boy on 60 Minutes

[BigHornRam]

Anyone see Kenny Boy's interview on 60 Minutes last night? Any comments?

As a side note: I took my parents out to Ruth's Chris Steak House for a belated Christmas present while in San Antonio ( at the advice of my good freind Sean. Very good, very expensive). The waiter said that over the years he has waited on Ken Lay a couple times when the refiners met in San Antonio for their convention. The waiters only comment was that Ken was a very good tipper. My dad said, "I'm sure he was. It wasn't his money."

 

[MarvB]

Yeah, what a crock (or should that be crook?) the guy was pulling down $6-$8 million a year, running the seventh largest company in North America, and had a Ph.D. in economics but didn't know anything that was going on |oo I do agree that Fastow and Skilling no doubt had their collective fingers a bit tighter to the pulse but I think Lay is a fool to belive that anyone in the industry is gonna take him for the poor fall guy that he wants them to. Thing that really sucks is that after all the damage that was done we (the taxpayers) are still left with the costs of next years trial and there's no doubt in my mind that Kenny Boy will spend his remaining $20 mil to keep from playing hide-the-soap in some 8x8 with Bubba.

My cousin, who still works (would have been retired by now) for Portland General had to nearly start from scratch with his pension since it was all converted to Enron stock back in the day. Twenty-two years in and all gone in a matter of months....over 4,000 people laid off. Fastow rolled over for a ten year sentence, Kenny's trial will likely take that long after all the appeals are worked through!

 

[Erik in AK]

When this scandal first went public there were several reports of recent Enron retirees commiting suicide. I'm sure there were similar cases with WorldCom,Tyco etc.

These corporate scumbags SHOULD be on trial for Manslaughter

 

[BigHornRam]

The show pretty much sudgested that Kenny Boy was either a crook or an idiot. Funny thing Kenny swore up and down that he wasn't a crook, but was too arrogant to accept the label of idiot. The fact that he rode the companies stock down into the dirt says something. But a smart person would know that if the CEO was dumping stock in front of the collapes, that would say something too. The fact that he wanted simpathy for the reality that he will spend his last 20 million on scumbag lawyers in an attempt to keep his sorry ass out of jail, says it all. Boo Hoo Kenny! My money say's that he is both a crook and an idiot.

 

[cjcj]

I saw it... A-hole said he wasn`t responsible...But Ruths Chris steaks are awesome,

 

[BigHornRam]

CJ,

I had the lamb chops! Even better than their steak.

 

[Nemont]

BHR,

What self respecting Montanan chooses Lamp Chops over Steak?

You go to Ruth's Chris and order Lamb Chops?????? I wouldn't tell anyone that story.

I think you need to voluntarily purge your system by eating a big porter house steak and washing it down with an good cold beer.


Nemont

 

[BigHornRam]

Nemont,

I like lamb over beef. Sorry. How about if I purge my system with a cajun spiced elk roast and a fine Washington Merlot?

 

[BigHornRam]

Here's something of interest to Kenny Boy in todays news.


By ERIN McCLAM, Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK - Bernard Ebbers, who built WorldCom from a humble Mississippi long-distance firm into one of the nation's biggest telecommunications conglomerates, was convicted Tuesday of engineering the colossal accounting fraud that sank the company.

A federal jury in Manhattan deliberated eight days before returning guilty verdicts on all counts — one count of conspiracy, one count of securities fraud and seven counts of false regulatory filings. The crimes carry up to 85 years in prison.


When the verdict was read, Ebbers' face reddened. His wife, Kristie, and other family members broke into tears. Afterward, Ebbers and his wife hailed a taxi outside the courthouse and left without speaking to reporters.


"We're all devastated," said defense attorney Reid Weingarten. "It's very sad it came out the way it did."


Sentencing was set for June 13. Weingarten said an appeal was planned, adding: "We are obviously extremely disappointed with this verdict, but the fight will continue."


There was no immediate comment from any of the jurors. The judge offered jurors the chance to speak to reporters, but none accepted, and the judge instructed reporters not to badger the jury.


The conviction comes more than two years after an internal auditor began asking questions about curious accounting at WorldCom, touching off a scandal that eventually unearthed $11 billion in cooked books.


Prosecution testimony at the six-week trial portrayed Ebbers, 63, as obsessed with keeping WorldCom's stock price high, and panicked about $400 million in personal loans that were backed by his shares in the company.


Ebbers himself took the witness stand late in the trial, insisting that he was unfamiliar with the details of accounting and knew nothing about the fraud taking place on his watch.


The star witness against him was Scott Sullivan, the former finance chief, who claimed Ebbers repeatedly ordered him to "hit our numbers" — a command, Sullivan said, to falsify the books to meet Wall Street expectations.


Sullivan, who himself has pleaded guilty to fraud, admitted to essentially masterminding the fraud — but said he did it on the clear instructions of Ebbers, who ignored his repeated pleas that the adjustments were wrong.


With the entire telecom industry suffering a dot-com hangover, the fraud was driven by soaring "line costs" — the fees WorldCom paid to smaller local telephone carriers to use their networks. Prosecutors said the fraud stretched from late 2000 until early 2002, sometimes amounting to nearly $1 billion per quarter in hidden expenses and improperly recognized revenue.


Pressure from the loans, the money he stood to lose and the power of the CEO's job combined to form a "perfect storm of corruption" that drove Ebbers to commit fraud, prosecutor William Johnson said in his closing argument.


"He was WorldCom, and WorldCom was Ebbers," the prosecutor told jurors. "He built the company. He ran it. Of course he directed this fraud."


Ebbers gambled by taking the witness stand. He directly disputed the testimony of Sullivan, saying he became aware of the fraud only in the summer of 2002, after he was asked to leave WorldCom.


"He's never told me he made an entry that wasn't right," Ebbers said of Sullivan. "If he had, we wouldn't be here today."


The conviction completes a staggering fall for Ebbers, who took a small long-distance company in Mississippi and merged with or acquired ever-larger companies, earning him accolades and the nickname Telecom Cowboy.





He still faces civil litigation, including from the company, which backed up his $400 million in personal loans when Bank of America demanded more and more collateral as the stock price fell.

WorldCom, which was based in Clinton, Miss., was driven into bankruptcy — the largest in U.S. history — in the summer of 2002. It has since re-emerged as MCI Inc., based in Ashburn, Va.

The company struck a $750 million settlement with federal regulators to repay aggrieved investors, a small sum compared to the tens of billions of dollars of market capitalization that evaporated in the scandal.

Twelve former directors of the company, plus some investment banks that underwrote WorldCom securities and auditing firm Arthur Andersen, also face a civil trial brought by angry investors. That trial is set for late March.

In winning a conviction against Ebbers, federal prosecutors in Manhattan rung up another victory in a remarkable string of white-collar prosecutions that began in the summer of 2002

 

[Erik in AK]

maybe this is the start of a trend (Ebbers' conviction that is)

 

[MarvB]

Another thing that galls me is that M&M Lay are saying that they are nearing bankruptcy and that "almost everything is gone" ....poor guys
How about their little manuever back in February 2000 when the Lays paid about $4 million to buy variable annuities that will, starting in 2007, guarantee the couple an annual income of about $900,000.

While stocks and most other ordinary investments are open to attack by creditors, life insurance policies and annuities are protected in Texas, leaving them virtually impervious to attack by creditors. Variable annuities of the sort purchased by the Lays are basically tax-deferred investments wrapped in insurance policies.

Texas law stipulates that the proceeds of annuity contracts "are fully exempt from creditors and from all demands in any bankruptcy and from execution, attachment, garnishment, or other legal process unless a statutory exemption, such as fraud, is applicable."

I saw old Linda Lay on the tube crying and she said that she and her husband were "fighting for liquidity," adding: "It's gone. There's nothing left. Everything we had mostly was in Enron stock."

Booh-hoo my ass! :MAD I'm sure my previously mentioned cousin and his co-workers up in Portland are shedding a lot of tear for that beotch!

Once the annuities reach maturity in February 2007, Kenneth and Linda Lay will be guaranteed monthly payments of $43,023 and $32,643, respectively, for life... not bad coin for a couple of paupers eh?

 

[cjcj]

Good post Marvb... Funny that he`s smart enough to know how to hide and secure that money... but plays dumb about all of the fraud.