Enron’s Fastow Earns Six Years in Prison
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Former Enron Corp. chief financial officer Andrew Fastow was sentenced yesterday in a Houston federal court to six years in prison followed by two years of full-time community service for his role in the crimes committed at the then-energy giant.
Enron’s December 2001 collapse marked one of the biggest corporate scandals ever.
The sentence was a reduction from the 10 years contemplated in the plea bargain that he reached with federal prosecutors in early 2004. Under the agreement, he pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud.
However, Judge Kenneth Hoyt had discretion to give Mr. Fastow, 44, a lower sentence.Following his plea, Mr. Fastow cooperated extensively with federal officials in their massive Enron criminal probe.
Mr. Fastow was a major prosecution witness in the criminal trial earlier this year of Kenneth Lay, Enron’s former chairman, and Jeffrey Skilling, its former president. Both men were convicted in May of conspiracy and fraud charges.
Mr. Lay subsequently died of heartrelated problems. Mr. Skilling is scheduled to be sentenced on October 23, and observers believe that he could receive a sentence of about 20 years.
Mr. Fastow was a pivotal figure in the Enron scandal. While chief financial officer, he ran and partly owned two private partnerships, LJM1 and LJM2, which did hundreds of millions of dollars of transactions with Enron.
News stories about the LJM partnerships helped spark Enron’s collapse in late 2001. Prosecutors subsequently identified the partnerships as major tools for illegally manipulating the company’s financial statements.
Judge Hoyt ordered Mr. Fastow to be taken into custody immediately.