Enron: Getting Lay & Skilling not easy
Federal prosecutors said last week that the conviction of Michael Kopper on fraud charges was just the opening act in their pursuit of former Enron executives. The obvious next target is his boss, former Enron chief financial officer Andrew Fastow, who is referred to by title throughout the criminal information describing Kopper’s wrongdoing.
But it will be far more complicated to build a case against former CEO Jeffrey Skilling and former chairman Ken Lay.
“The prosecution will clearly have problems moving much farther than Fastow just on the Kopper case,” said Ross Miller, co-author of the book What Went Wrong at Enron. “It is pretty clear they’ve got Fastow. The key question becomes, can Fastow get them to Skilling?”