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Old 07-05-2006, 10:47 AM   #1 (permalink)
Bill O'Rights
will always be an Alyson Hanniganite
 
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Ken Lay avoids prison sentence...

By dying!

Quote:
The death of former Enron Corp. Chairman Kenneth L. Lay this morning means he will not serve a prison term but may help people he victimized move on with their lives, according to some people who had contact with him during his brief time in Omaha.

Lay, 64, who faced a life sentence for lying about Enron's finances, died in Aspen, Colo.

The Sheriff's Office in Pitkin, Colo., said officers were called to Lay's house in Old Snowmass, Colo., shortly after 1 a.m. Mountain time. He was taken to Aspen Valley Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 3:11 a.m. Lay, who lived in Houston, frequently vacationed in Colorado.

Family spokeswoman Kelly L. Kimberly issued a statement saying, "Ken Lay passed away early this morning in Aspen. The Lays have a very large family with whom they need to communicate. And out of respect for the family, we will release further details at a later time."

She said the Lays did not own a place in Aspen but were renting.

Pastor Steve Wende of First United Methodist Church of Houston, said in a statement that church member Lay died unexpectedly of a "massive coronary. . . . Apparently, his heart simply gave out."

Lay, convicted May 25, was to be sentenced Oct. 23.

"He did a lot of destruction," said Douglas County Commissioner Mike Boyle, who was mayor of Omaha in 1985 when Lay engineered Enron's move to Houston. "I know many people in Omaha who lost almost everything when Enron collapsed because of his misdeeds.

"But you reach a point where your anger starts to subside and you need to let go and move on with your life. Hopefully that's what this will do for some people."

People won't have to worry about the outcome of an appeal of his conviction for defrauding investors and employees by lying about Enron's financial condition, Boyle said. "But it would have been nice to see him in a pink prison uniform."

Boyle said Lay deceived Omahans, including thousands of highly paid Enron employees, in 1985, putting up a "facade" that the company might keep its headquarters in Omaha or share the headquarters with Houston.

Lay planned all along to move the company to Houston, Boyle said.

Enron was created in the 1985 merger of Houston Natural Gas, which Lay headed, with InterNorth Inc. of Omaha, a natural gas pipeline company that was one of Nebraska's leading corporate citizens.

The shock of Enron's departure prompted the Nebraska Legislature to pass the state's first comprehensive business incentive laws.

Lay directed Enron's climb to No. 7 on the Fortune 500 list, with $101 billion in annual revenues. He got rid of the company's basic oil and gas businesses, instead turning to specialized trading and other financial businesses, including some that were illegal and led to his criminal charges.

Tim Thomas, a Houston engineer who lost his job when Enron collapsed, said Lay's death was "the easy way out. He didn't suffer like so many other people have.

"He needed to know what life is like to be out on the street, out of a job with no money, like 13,000 other people" who lost their jobs.

"Someone who collects multimillions of dollars a year in salaries and bonuses, he forgets how the common people live. That's not right."

Thomas said he expects that former Enron Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Skilling, also convicted of financial fraud, will go to prison.

Skilling declined to comment on Lay's death.

"You have one down and one to go now," Thomas said. "You just hope somebody pays somehow, because it was a real tragedy. It was a great place to work. It's a shame that people like him and others with that much greed and power ran it into the ground."
Already there are those in Omaha, which was beat rather badly by Lay, that are calling his death...convenient. Now, i'm not going to go that far, however...it does appear that Skilling, which many had predicted would be the "fall guy" in the Enron debacle, is gonna end up taking all the heat afterall.

Lay screwed Omaha up the ass, back in '85. There is not a tear being shed. I am, however, a little...I dunno..set back a bit by the outright venom being displayed over the man's death. Local talk radio is having a field day with it.
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