Word: fastows
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Watching former Enron Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow in the Enron trial this week was, at times, like attending a business school seminar. On the witness stand, testifying for the prosecution against his former colleagues Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, he spoke slowly and clearly, using easy-to-understand metaphors. When asked a question he often backtracked to give fuller, more detailed answers. His testimony was like a crash course in the financial shenanigans that led to Enron's collapse. One lawyer in the audience said listening to Fastow testify for one hour was like reading about the company...
...Fastow?s cross-examination was also like watching courtroom drama on television. In real-life courtrooms, defense attorneys rarely get to say nasty personal things to the witness without objections from opposing counsel. But the government, reluctant to appear to be defending Fastow, sat back and mostly let Jeffrey Skilling's defense attorney, Daniel Petrocelli, have his way. "It?s like fighting a guy with his hands tied behind his back - it?s a lawyer?s dream," said one courtroom observer, former Federal prosecutor Michael Wynne...
What did he do wrong? Causey pleaded guilty to just one of the 36 counts in his indictment, for using Enron's financial statements to mislead investors and regulators. Unlike Fastow and some other executives, Causey was never accused of enriching himself at shareholders' expense. He faces five to 10 years in prison...
What would he testify about? Causey was with Lay and Skilling at meetings in which Enron's mounting debt and losses were discussed. He can also connect the dots for the jury, explaining Fastow's complex hidden deals...
...Causey bring down Skilling and Lay? Their lawyers have always maintained that Lay and Skilling knew nothing about Fastow's schemes. If the chief accounting officer says Skilling or Lay knew, says David Berg, a financial-crime trial lawyer in Houston, "it would be a fatal cancer for the defense." But since Causey had been on the defense's side, those lawyers could ask that his testimony be disallowed, arguing that he knows too much about their strategy. Failing that, they will try to tarnish him with praise. Causey is an honest man, they say, who admitted to a crime...