Enron's Ken Lay dies

[Mr.Vicchio]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5151140.stm

Kenneth Lay, the former Enron chief executive and chairman convicted on fraud and conspiracy charges, has died. Mr Lay suffered a heart attack at his holiday home near Aspen, Colorado. He was pronounced dead in hospital shortly after 0300 local time on Wednesday. He and former chief executive Jeffrey Skilling were found guilty in May in connection with Enron's collapse. Enron went bankrupt in 2001 with debts of $31.8bn (£18bn), leaving 4,000 people out of work. Innocence maintained After America's most high-profile corporate fraud trial, Mr Lay was found guilty on 25 May on all six fraud and conspiracy charges that he faced.

[bishop]

he definitely couldn't have been looking forward to being tossed in prison. if kenny is dead, he got out easy (and saved bush from potentially using his pardon)..

[Boetie]

bishop posts: if kenny is dead, he got out easy (and saved bush from potentially using his pardon)..

I'm not an expert on this pardon business, but I think dead people can still be pardoned. It's just a matter of how hard family members want to persist on having a dead family member getting a pardon.

The possibility of going to prison may have been a great stress factor on Ken.

I heard of a guy that went to emergency and was told to chill out and get some R&R, because if he didn't it will be the end of him. He did die and his wife said that he was so worried he just wouldn't sleep, which of course would be doing the opposite of what the doctors wanted him to do.

Pressure such as the one Ken was facing could be a factor in his death. He should have gotten a hold of Rush and chilled out on hillbilly heroin. Rush could have then visited Ken in prison, bringing Ken a cake. The recipie is one cake mix, add a bottle of hillbilly heroin, give to Ken.

[rmnunez]

Get the feeling you got gypped because he died without fulfilling his sentence (approximately 45 years incarceration)?

[gr8fuldaniel]

Thom Hartmann (Listen Now) asks:

Is Ken Lay the proverbial "Man who knew too much?"

He compares Lay to William Casey, who two days before he was scheduled to testify, was rushed to surgery where they removed the portion of his brain that controls the tongue (Brocas region).
Was kenny boy talking to prosecutors? Lay had met with arnold Swartnegger at a beverly Hills hotel, right before the rolling blackouts here in California, before Arnie was elected.

Gary Sick alleged that Casey orchestrated a deal in 1980 with Iran to refrain from releasing the hostages until after the November presidential elections, in order to deny President Carter credit for their possible release. This came to be known as the "October Surprise." Congress investigated in 1992, but Casey's role was never thoroughly ascertained since he did not testify, as he had died in 1987. Therefore the "October Surprise" has never been proven. The congressional inquires as well as the majority of investigative reports found the charges to be without merit.

Link DCI William Casey dies of a brain tumor a mere two days before he is to give testimony for the Iran-Contra scandal, Mayknoll, MD. He had received a craniotomy. Dodged that one!

[gr8fuldaniel]

A bit about Dillenger, :

Conflicting Evidence But photos of the dead Dillinger revealed some startling facts, namely the person who perished that night did not look like Dillinger. The FBI countered that Dillinger had obtained extensive plastic surgery to disguise himself from the authorities. The autopsy report could have strengthened their case but it mysteriously disappeared and did not resurface until 30 years later. When it did, the discrepancies contained within were astonishing. The man that died that night was neither the same height nor weight than Dillinger. The dead man had brown eyes while it was a well known fact that Dillinger's eyes were bright blue. Dillinger's well publicized birth mark was not mentioned in the autopsy report. The report stated that the dead man had more teeth than Dillinger. And finally, there was evidence that the dead man had a rheumatic heart, a condition that would have certainly prevented Dillinger from serving in the U.S. Navy. The FBI continues to deny the discrepancies and claims that they were nothing more than untimely mistakes made in the coroner's office. More...

I wonder if todays press has any maverick reporters, willing to question the official story from their embedded position?

[bishop]

good to see that people can turn any story into a conspiracy theory...

[gr8fuldaniel]

Quote by: bishop good to see that people can turn any story into a conspiracy theory...

What? Are you saying the Indictment Party wouldnt dare break the law of the land?

I am only saying, I hope the obvious questions are asked. Who originally leaked that it was a suicide. And WHY?

It matters. Wheres the body?

[PatrickHenry]

Lay's death could be a fake... Not saying it is, but with enough money, an prison sentence staring into your eyes and a knowledge of key political players, it ain't outta the question...

[bishop]

Quote by: dan What? Are you saying the Indictment Party wouldnt dare break the law of the land? I am only saying, I hope the obvious questions are asked. Who originally leaked that it was a suicide. And WHY? It matters. Wheres the body?

no, i simply commented that i find it amusing how EVERY single story out there is so readily/easily turned into a conspiracy theory..

all the articles state that he was taken to aspen valley hospital where he died.. hospitals have their own morgues, so that's probably where his body is.. do you need them to parade the corpse in the streets to believe that he's dead? (and i can see it now - conspiracy theorists comparing googled images of ken lay to those of the corpse, looking for obscure differences and offering new conspiracy theories.)

dunno who leaked this information.. it's entirely possible that drudge just pulled it out of his ass. the notion of people who flap their traps without having all the information isn't exactly new.. kind of like bush babbling to he world about fabled iraqis wmd's.

[gr8fuldaniel]

Quote by: bishop no, i simply commented that i find it amusing how EVERY single story out there is so readily/easily turned into a conspiracy theory..

Maybe it would help to look at WHO we are talking about....

From todays Houston Chronicle

Lay and Jeff Skilling .... convicted May 25 of conspiracy and fraud.

[gr8fuldaniel]

Kenny boy is dubyas best friend. Lay taught junior how to dump stocks when he ran Arbusto into the ground. See any coincidences between this here:

Link Lay was found guilty on May 25 on six counts of conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud in a case born from one of the biggest business scandals in U.S. history.

And this here:

Link In recent days, questions have resurfaced about the way Bush sold $848,000 worth of shares in Harken Energy Corp. just before the stock price slumped, and about Bush's delay in filing the required insider-trading report. The Harken deal helped Bush pay off the loan on his $606,000 investment in the Texas Rangers baseball team, for which he walked away with $14.9 million.

GWB is the prodigy of kenny boy. He was equally instrumental to bushs success as Karl Rove was. Rove is the brains, but Lay was the money.

A White House reporter was just on the Thom Hartmann show who had asked persistantly what kind of response did the president have about Lays death. Tony Snow would not comment. He said he hadnt talked to bush about it. Finally the woman asked if there was any clue at all how bush felt.....
Tony Snow said, well how would you feel about it?

The woman reporter said: "Well, he wasnt one of my best friends"

OUCH!!!

This is paraphrased and I didnt catch her name. The White House hasnt released the Daily press briefing yet, so I cant post it verbatim. In fact it may not make the cut.....I will post it when they do.

[bishop]

that is besides the point as far as i'm concerned.. but alas, anything and everything can be used to support any conspiracy theory..

call me a sheep, but when i see someone ALWAYS crying conspiracy over every single story that comes out, i begin to question their judgement - and i also begin to think that they simply create conspiracy theories by default.

[Apeman81]

Quote by: bishop good to see that people can turn any story into a conspiracy theory...

Amusing how adamant one may become in proving your point.

[PatrickHenry]

Quote by: bishop ...when i see someone ALWAYS crying conspiracy over every single story ...

I can see your point, bishop. Can you see mine? That the extremely influential criminals have potentials far above what you and I have? To get away with massive crimes?

My wife said when she heard the news of Lay's death: "I knew he'd never spend a day in jail..."

[gr8fuldaniel]

This is a crucial time for Ken Lay, apparently he has been talking to prosecutors negotiating his sentencing:

Houston Chronicle June 17, 2006, 11:50AM Sentencing for Lay, Skilling pushed back Defense wins its wish for six additional weeks By JOHN C. ROPER Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle A federal judge has agreed to delay the Sept. 11 sentencing of Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay by six weeks to give their attorneys additional time to prepare their arguments for how long the former Enron executives should spend in prison. U.S. District Judge Sim Lake set the date for Oct. 23 at 1 p.m., agreeing with defense lawyers who said they needed up to 45 more days to study federal sentencing guidelines.

They had to stop the talking NOW. During the trial would be too late. He had the iside dirt on everyone. Could the reich-wing afford to have energy commission meetings go on the record? That would be the nail in the coffin of the whole damned mob. Iraq was premeditated in those secret energy meetings.

This crime family could not afford to have Kenny boys conscience teased with the carrot of doing the right thing..... with the prospect of seeing daylight ever again.

[bishop]

Quote by: PatrickHenry I can see your point, bishop. Can you see mine? That the extremely influential criminals have potentials far above what you and I have? To get away with massive crimes? My wife said when she heard the news of Lay's death: "I knew he'd never spend a day in jail..."

anything's possible, especially when you build up a fortress of circumstantial information to support the conspiracy theory.. stranger things have happened.. just look at what they did to elvis..


so, was skilling involved in any of this high level action? will he be next on the list?

[brien]

Quote by: bishop he definitely couldn't have been looking forward to being tossed in prison. if kenny is dead, he got out easy (and saved bush from potentially using his pardon)..

Bish; You're probably right. This is nothing new. Look at what Clinton did 48 hrs before he left office. Pardons like:

http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pardonchartlst.htm

Many drug pardons, and also the most famous, Marc Rich:


Marc Rich
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

Marc Rich (born Marc David Reich on December 18, 1934) is a billionaire international commodities trader who fled the United States in 1983 to live in Switzerland in order to avoid prosecution on charges of tax evasion and illegally making oil deals with Iran during the hostage crisis. He received a controversial presidential pardon from President of the United States Bill Clinton in 2001, which required him to pay a $100 million dollar fine before the charges would be dropped.

Most recently, Marc Rich was linked to former United States Vice Presidential Chief of Staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Libby served as Rich's lawyer as far back as 1985 and charged him US$2 million for legal fees.

Contents [hide]
1 Life
2 Scandal
3 Legacy
4 See also
5 External link



[edit]
Life
Rich was born to a Jewish working class family in Antwerp, Belgium in 1934. The Reichs immigrated to the United States in 1942 to avoid the Nazis. Young Marc attended high school at the Rhodes School in Manhattan, New York and college at New York University. Rich worked as commodities trader for his father, who sought to build an American manufacturing fortune through burlap sack production. Marc Rich later worked with Philipp Brothers, a dealer in raw metals, learning about the international raw materials markets and commercial trading with poor, third world nations. His tutelage under Brothers afforded Rich opportunities to strike deals with various dictatorial regimes and embargoed nations, such as Iran, using a special relationship with Ayatollah Khomeini. His company Marc Rich Real Estate GmbH is involved in large developer projects (e.g. in Prague, Czech Republic [1]).

[edit]
Scandal
Main article: Iran hostage crisis
In 1983, Rich and partner Pincus Green were indicted by U.S. Attorney and future mayor of New York City Rudolph Giuliani, on charges of tax evasion and illegal trading with Iran. Both of them fled to Switzerland before a court appearance, and they remained on the FBI's Most Wanted List for many years.

On January 20, 2001, only hours before leaving office, President Bill Clinton granted Rich an extremely controversial presidential pardon. Since Rich's former wife and mother of his 3 children, socialite Denise Rich, had made large donations to the Democratic Party and the Clinton Library during Bill Clinton's time in office, Clinton's critics alleged that Rich's pardon had been bought. Clinton explained his decision by noting that similar situations were settled in civil, not criminal court, and cited the clemency pleas from Israeli government officials, including Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Federal Prosecutor Mary Jo White was appointed to investigate. She stepped down before the investigation was finished and was replaced by James Comey. Though Comey was critical of Clinton's pardons, he could not find any grounds on which to indict him.

Following his presidential pardon, he immediately began lucrative business dealings with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, in connection with the UN oil-for-food scandals.

Marc Rich, after spending several years in the canton of Zug, moved his domicile to Meggen, a city part of the Swiss canton of Lucerne, where he zealously guards his privacy, but managed to be hunted down by a 60 Minutes TV crew once and he agreed to a one-time only interview. He resides in a property called "La villa rose" (the pink villa) on the shores of the Vierwaldstättersee (also known as Lake Lucerne). Rich also owns property in the ski resort of St. Moritz, Switzerland and in Marbella, Spain.

His business partner, Pincus Green, is known to be the "logistics" brain of their company.

[edit]
Legacy
Whilst Marc Rich certainly didn't invent commodity trading he was its major architect and engineer. Centred in London, the global oil trade can be said to improve the efficient use of fixed assets such as terminals, ships, refineries and production which oil majors and governments are not incentivised to put to best use. His obvious corporate legacy is Glencore, a company he founded, domiciled in Geneva but centred in London, where the arts of trading were discerned and practiced. Glencore also spawned and nourished (unwittingly) many imitations. The Oil Markets are now awash with trading companies such as Trafigura and Projector, attempting to profit both through the direction of risk capital towards vanilla trading of commodities on exchanges and in OTC markets but also in the more opaque deals for which Marc Rich was infamous


I have a watch that shows Clinton handing out pardons with one hand and collecting cash with the other. Just business as usual...eh :rolleyes:

[gr8fuldaniel]

Quote by: bishop so, was skilling involved in any of this high level action? will he be next on the list?

I think Skilling can consider himself fairly warned.

Personally, I doubt the mob is willing to take that chance. Even though I am not sure he was actually "in" the secret energy meetings. He was most likely, in the know. Heresay doesnt get legs in court.

[brien]

Quote by: rmnunez Get the feeling you got gypped because he died without fulfilling his sentence (approximately 45 years incarceration)?

On the contrary, he saved the government money.