former employees happy enron execs may get life in prison

from san francisco chronicle

Former Enron employees shed no tears for Lay
Purva Patel, Lynn J. Cook, Houston Chronicle

Sunday, May 28, 2006

Houston -- Enron Corp. employees who lost their jobs or saw their life savings wiped out in the energy trader's spectacular collapse found bittersweet relief in the convictions of former chief executives Kenneth Lay and Jefferey Skilling.

And some who had been willing to give Lay the benefit of the doubt when he professed innocence to charges of conspiracy and fraud found that his own words during trial turned them against him.

"In a tragic way -- and everything about Enron has been tragic -- I was pleased," said former Enron employee Garrett Ashmore. "It's bizarre how relieved I feel. It's like an anchor that was around my leg has been cut loose, and I can finally start going forward."

On Thursday, a federal jury here convicted Lay and Skilling on 24 counts of conspiracy and fraud for lying to investors and employees about the company's health when they knew their optimism masked fraud. In a separate, nonjury trial, Lay was convicted on four counts of bank fraud. Both men will be sentenced in September, and they face the very real possibility of spending the rest of their lives in prison.

Ashmore, 30, knew Lay as a philanthropist before he knew him as a boss. When he was in high school, Lay gave him a scholarship, and later, a job at Enron. As Lay's criminal trial neared, Ashmore said he was conflicted about his former boss who had been so good to him.

But the trial changed all that.

"The most damning thing," Ashmore said, "was when Ken Lay took the stand and was so combative. I thought, man he just slipped his own noose."

Ashmore said he was shocked to hear Lay testify that "there's only so much he could do for the employees."

Lay was referring to the fall of 2001, when he encouraged workers to buy more Enron stock while selling off his own. Enron's eventual collapse vaporized $2.1 billion in company pension plans and retirement savings, along with 5,600 jobs and $60 billion in company market value.

"I think maybe it was a brief flash of him showing his true colors," Ashmore said.

Before the Houston company announced that its financial statements for previous years were bogus, Enron placed a lockdown on its 401(k) retirement plans that prevented employees from accessing the accounts as the company changed administrators for the stock plans.

By the time the lockdown was lifted, the shares were practically worthless.

"It was the right verdict," said Rod Jordan, co-founder of the Severed Enron Employee Coalition. "I always have been disappointed that men of that potential quality would step over the line. I think it's vindication ... that the top people were found guilty and had their day in court."

For many former employees, Lay and Skilling's convictions mark the end of a drawn-out saga they've watched play out as they struggled to find new jobs, tried to rebuild their savings and pieced their lives back together after the company's downfall.

"When you have a verdict like this, you don't want to look at it with a whole lot of malice, but you do want to say there is justice," said Victor Garza, 58, who lost his job as a buyer of heavy equipment for the company. "These guys hurt a lot of people and did a lot of injustice."

Former Enron Vice President Sherron Watkins, who alerted Lay of accounting problems at the company and was rebuffed, said she doesn't feel vindicated as much as she wishes the founder and former Enron chairman and CEO had listened to her warnings. Much pain could have been avoided.

"I should have made more of a stink (about) aggressive accounting I saw as early as 1996," Watkins said.

Eric Eden, 38, lost his job running Enron's computer-drafting department. He moved on and started a sprinkler company, and he defended Lay and Skilling before the trial as two men just doing their jobs.

But he said the trial and Thursday's verdict revealed a bitter truth.

"I feel very stepped on and bruised and lied to," Eden said. "I believed in Ken Lay and his morality. Even if he thought he was being moral back then, the jury just told us he wasn't."

Eden hopes Lay and Skilling get slapped with long prison sentences.

"I think an appropriate punishment would be to have their life completely taken away from them," he said. "Because that's what happened to so many of us."

Chronicle staff contributed to this report.