Murder Defendant Argues Way Out Of Jail, Wins Freedom Based on Prosecutorial Abuse

This WSJ story is very uplifting. It is the tale of a murder defendant who spent ten years in prison, fighting his conviction. What he uncovered from a prison cell will leave you speechless. Read it, and then think about the Enron case again. Compare the witness weaknesses and the moral fiber of the prosecutors.

Rex Shelby Plea Agreement

Rex Shelby Plea Agreement

The New Enron Sucks

I work very close to the new Enron Corp. The shell company is basically still trying to sell off some of Enron’s assets and every day I think: it’s so close. I could just stroll over there, see if the E is anywhere to be found. So today I actually did it.

After lunch, I went to the building and carefully, discreetly, looked up the company on the matrix:

Then I rode up up up in the elevator:

And I found it. There was no E. There was just this:

Suddenly I felt cold inside. I thought of that phrase: history repeating itself.

If history repeats itself, it is still the same history: more repetition, no history.

Because it is the same history. The same hysteria. Nothing inside that office had anything that I wanted. Inside was the fresh machine of repetition, lies, the grinding gridwork of an apparatus that will perpetuate the same information over and over and over.

The one I do not talk about – - in the beginning he said to me that he wished I could forget that he worked at Enron. I told him I would love him even if he was a waiter at my favorite 50s diner.

I suddenly thought of that as I left, and I felt a strangely pure joy — joy from knowing that the machine is still spinning with the same information. You see him on the news, frozen in time. But he, like all of them, is so much more than that. History is not repeating. I have the history, the history every single day, and it is in full-color and it is beautiful.

USA Today Tackles Prosecutorial Abuse

WSJ has an interesting article about USA Today’s series on prosecutorial misconduct.

The [sic] USA Today identified 200 cases since 1997 in which prosecutors supposedly violated laws or ethics rules; in at least 48 of the cases, defendants were convicted of crimes, but courts gave them shorter sentences than they would have otherwise received due to prosecutorial misconduct.

Some of the defendants who got shorter sentences, according to USA Today, returned to crime almost as soon as they went free.

In many instances prosecutors themselves agree to sweetheart plea deals with defendants after findings of misconduct, according to USA Today. In D.C. alone, for example, the Department of Justice agreed to shorter prison sentences for at least 8 convicted murderers after judges and defense attorneys discovered that prosecutors had concealed potentially exculpatory evidence.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C. told the USA Today that 7 of the 8 murderers were prosecuted “by a single lawyer who left the office more than 15 years ago, hardly a systemic problem.”

A Justice Department spokeswoman said the USA Today’s investigation “misleads readers by providing a statistically inaccurate representation of the hard work done by federal prosecutors.”

Ah, the old “it’s rare so it is not a problem” excuse. I believe Blackstone had a good answer for that: it is better for ten guilty men to go to free than to force one innocent man to submit to punishment by the state. Every single victim of prosecutorial abuse matters. It is worse than child abuse, worse even than homicide, worse than terrorism for the simple reason that there is no recourse for the victim when he is victimized. There is no greater authority he can appeal to. And in most cases, as the USA Today article points out, and I’ve pointed out many times, cases of prosecutorial misconduct are rarely punished, regardless of how egregious the DOJ’s actions.

In the Enron case, the lawyers were completely lawless. Laws were ignored or applied incorrectly; see the NatWest Three and my articles about extradition, or Jeff Skilling’s prosecution under “Honest Services and see also Kevin Howard for a hair-raising experience with honest services, and the Nigerian Barge defendants and Ken Rice and the various threats they used on him, and Jeff McMahon and Joe Hirko and Rex Shelby and Rick Causey and please, look at what they did to Lea Fastow. They used her to get her husband though her crime would never have been prosecuted if she wasn’t “Lea Fastow” — according to John Kroger, a federal prosecutor! They took a mother away from her two terrified young children and put her in prison for a year for a crime they ordinarily wouldn’t even prosecute.

Here are twenty-four explicit, specific examples of prosecutorial misconduct.

So don’t tell me it only happens once in a great while. It happens all the time if you’re an Enron defendant.

One Wish

My group is moving offices. So as I was packing up some documents (a year of Kinder Morgan earnings reports) I found this note. I have no recollection of writing it. I have no idea if it had to do with Kinder Morgan. I just don’t know. But it makes me giggle when I look at it, so I saved it.

Enron Songs: Found Out About You

A symptom of my general state of nostalgia: when I hear certain songs, they are so closely associated with Enron that I can not form new memories with them. They are reserved for that era of my life. I’ve decided to exorcise these particular ghosts this way: with the Enron Songs series.

My friends think I have horrible taste in music because I generally don’t listen to modern music. So the songs I associate with Enron don’t necessarily correlate to the late 1990s, though this one does. It is unique for this reason. When I hear “Found Out About You” by the Gin Blossoms, I always think of leaving the Enron building on a Friday night to drive to Austin. I’d drive the speed limit until I got about eighty miles out of town and then open up the turbo and drive a hundred and twenty miles an hour, with this song screaming into the open air. It’s an angry song and I had nothing to be angry about, but it demanded that I drive fast and forget whatever troubles were clinging to me after the work-week.

And it has one of the most vivid, horrible, heartbreaking lines that I’ve ever heard, which I’ve bolded.

So: Found Out About You by the Gin Blossoms

All last summer in case you don’t recall
I was yours and you were mine forget it all
Is there a line that I could write, sad enough to make you cry?
And all the lines you wrote to me were lies

Months roll past, the love that you struck dead
Did you love me only in my head?
Well the things you said and did to me, seemed to come so easily
The love I thought I’d won you give for free

Whispers at the bus stop
I heard about nights out in the school yard
I found out about you
I found out about you

Rumors follow everywhere you go
When you left and I was last to know
Famous now and there’s no doubt, all the places you hang out
They know your name and know what you’re about

Whispers at the bus stop
I heard about nights out in the school yard
I found out about you
I found out about you

Street lights break on through the car window
And the time too often on A M radio
Well you know it’s all I think about
I write your name
drive past your house
your boyfriend’s over I watch your light go out

Whispers at the bus stop
I heard about nights out in the school yard
I found out about you
I found out about you

Whispers at the bus stop
I heard about nights out in the school yard
I found out about you
I found out about you
I found out about you

Carl Bass Fights To Remain CPA

On Christmas Day, an interesting article about Carl Bass was published in the northern Ohio “Morning Journal” via AP:

To many in the accounting world, Carl Bass is a hero. Long before Enron became a worldwide symbol of scandal, Bass told his supervisors at Arthur Andersen LLP that something was amiss with the Houston energy giant.

But the Texas state board that licenses accountants sees Bass differently — as unfit to continue in his profession.

Nearly a decade after Enron collapsed and took Arthur Andersen with it, the work of Bass and another former Andersen partner, Thomas Bauer, as Enron auditors is still being debated in a highly contentious and costly proceeding.

The Texas State Board of Public Accountancy has stripped Bass and Bauer of their CPA licenses after determining they violated professional standards in their audits. But the pair has pushed back with a legal challenge that led a judge to rule that the license revocations should be voided because the board violated the Texas Open Meetings Act.

The revocations remain in effect while the matter is under appeal, which could take at least a year.

The upshot is a standoff playing out after most of the figures in the Enron scandal have had their days in court and raising questions about a little-known state agency that doesn’t rely on the Legislature for funding.

William Treacy, the board’s executive director, said it’s in the public interest for Bass and Bauer to be barred from working as CPAs. He cited the depth of the Enron scandal, which led to more than $60 million in lost company stock value and more than $2 billion in losses from employee pension plans.

“There’s a lot more than two licenses at stake,” Treacy said. “Let’s not forget the thousands of people who lost their life savings, their jobs and their pensions.”

The board argues that Bass and Bauer should have their licenses revoked because they failed to follow accepted accounting practices in conducting Enron audits in 1997 and 1998.

But some observers believe the case is more one of overzealousness by the agency than insufficient audits.

Wayne Shaw, a professor of corporate governance at SMU’s Cox School of Business in Dallas, said it’s unusual to see licenses revoked because of flawed audits unless the accountants were complicit or showed total disregard for accepted procedures. That’s particularly true for audits like those involved with Enron, he said.

The Enron Life: Wings, Wheels, Water

Enron gave me access to fun things… things that I doubt I would have ever known if not for the money I made via Enron. For instance, I had a nice little Porsche collection going for a while. And it was because I addicted to the speed of the Porsches, and the fact that it was Enron who first introduced me to private airplane travel, that I got my pilot’s license.

I tried boats but frankly never quite fell in love. But at least I had the experience of tooling around in my own little boat, and later I would appreciate Sean’s yachts.

Oh how I miss that company.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Enron

Continuing the Enron Blog tradition….

This year has been a banner year for the Enron Blog. I surpassed a million visitors this fall and it pleases me to be able to discuss a subject I hold so dear with so many people. It makes me think there might be a shift in the thinking about Enron. That maybe people aren’t so quick to condemn the Enron executives or to buy the ETF’s version of events.

But even more importantly, I’ve gotten to know some truly great people. I won’t mention names but they know who they are and I hope they know how much I adore them.

So my Christmas wishes for Enron executives:

To Jeff Skilling, I give freedom. The ability to walk out of the prison doors, inhale fresh air, and know that what no matter what else happens in your life, nothing else will ever be as fucked up as these last three years have been. The Rockies in springtime are lovely.

To Rick Causey, I give freedom and privacy.

To Andy Fastow (yes I know he is Jewish) I give forgiveness.

To Michael Kopper (yes I know he’s Jewish) I give joy.

To Ken Rice, I give jet skis. Because I can’t think of anything else to give him and they seem fun and like something he’d use.

To Kevin Hannon, I give a small electrical fire in the ETF’s office in which no-one is harmed, but their contact information for him is forever destroyed.

To Scott Yeager, I give a giant decommissioned US battleship christened the USS FUCK YOU, ENRON TASK FORCE with a 4-story solid gold penis sculpture on the bow.

To Joe Hirko, I give the truth about the Enron Task Force.

To Rex Shelby, I give a fluffy white bunny.

To David Bermingham, I give an apology from the state of Texas.

To Gary Mulgrew, I hate to give two people the same thing, but he’s also getting an apology from the state of Texas.

For Sherron Watkins I bestow a conscience.

How To Make Enron Art

Step One. Take a sexy picture of yourself from the year Enron collapsed:

Step Two. Screengrab some random emails from an Enron executive.

Step Three. In Photoshop, post the emails over the picture. Fade the email layer. Use the burn tool. Write something random and vaguely bureaucratic (“Do not copy”) to contrast with the sexy stuff. Voila.

2010 Enron Blog Awards

Usually at the end of the year, I hand out virtual presents. I still plan to do that, but I wanted to augment it with the inaugural Enron Blog Awards. Therefore:

Enron Executive With The Most Endurance
Rex Shelby. 2010 was a mixed blessing for Rex Shelby. It was the end of an extremely long, exhausting ordeal that saw him lose millions of dollars in legal fees, give up untold opportunities for jobs and personal experiences, and ultimately saw him take a plea deal to put an end to the eight years of prosecution. He is the one who endures.

Enron Executive With Most Reason To Do An End-Zone Dance
Scott Yeager. 2010 was an awesome year for Yeager, who saw the Supreme Court rule in his favor on claims of violation of collateral estoppel. The Fifth Circuit then surprised Enron watchers by handing up a positive ruling for a white collar defendant. He is free as a bird, and busy rebuilding his life after a giant, colossal waste of time caused by the DOJ.

Enron Executive With Most Reason To Hope For A Better 2011
Jeff Skilling. He won at the Supreme Court but his fate is still not decided. However, it seems that jurists and onlookers alike are beginning to give Enron – and Jeff Skilling – a second look. It is almost impossible to believe his sentence will remain. That, at the very least, will have to be reduced.

Enron Executive With Most Reason To Go Completely Psycho But Probably Will Not Because He’s An Amazing, Balanced Guy
Joe Hirko. Joe’s 2010 was just plain sad. He accepted a plea deal, went to prison, and his beloved wife died. Joe Hirko would be totally justified in becoming a complete nutcase – he’d have a free pass for this. But he won’t. He will endure this with the same stoicism he’s handled everything that’s happened to him so far.

Enron Executive Who Best Proves That Living Well Is The Best Revenge
Ken Rice. The DOJ tried so so so hard to make an example out of him. And they failed so so so profoundly. Ken Rice, like Joe Hirko and Rex Shelby, has maintained a cool stoicism about everything that the DOJ tried to do to him, and he’s done a terrific job of being happy, despite everything. His freedom thrills me because for all the DOJ’s crowing about what a significant coup Ken Rice was, they couldn’t keep him down.

Enron Executive Who Most Flies Under The Radar
Kevin Hannon. You never hear a peep from Kevin Hannon, and I suspect that will continue. I like to think his silence is a sign of deep and total contentment.

Enron Executive Who Most Influenced Me In 2010
Nigerian Barge defendants. This is sort of like winning an Oscar for “Best Picture” since it must be shared among several people. James A. Brown, Robert Furst, William Fuhs, Daniel Bayly, and Daniel Boyle have influenced me more than they will ever know.

Most Awesome Enron Lawyer in 2010
Ed Tomko. I adore Tony Canales, and I am terrified of Per Ramfjord, but Ed Tomko, counsel for Rex Shelby, is the most outstanding Enron lawyer of 2010. Like his client, his endurance is just mind boggling.

Most Annoying Enron Executive of 2010
Sherron Watkins. She’s never not been annoying. In fact, I might just rename this award the “Sherron Watkins Award For Excellence in Douchebaggery and Annoying Publicity-Whoring”. It does have a ring to it. Anyway, Watkins must have a mortgage payment due because she was all over the place this year. She gave speeches and wrote articles in which she accused Jeff Skilling of murdering Cliff Baxter.

Enron Executive Most Missed In 2010
Cliff Baxter. The more I learn about Cliff Baxter, the deeper the loss feels. I would have liked to have known him.

Three Years

Today is the third year anniversary of this blog. Right Thinking Girl lasted from 2002-2007, so this means that I’ve been blogging for eight years.

How is that even possible?

I began to blog because after 9/11 I desperately needed to connect to other people. And the Enron blog emerged from the fact that my political rants were being subsumed by all things Enron. It’s turned out pretty well, I think.

I’ve met a lot of really interesting people through this blog and I’m really thankful for each one of them.

Thanks and here’s to eight more years.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all the friends I’ve met through my blogs. I’m so happy to have shared another year with you and I hope it continues for many more.

I hope you don’t read this until next week because you’re with your family, celebrating with people who love you, and you’re fat from too many Christmas treats.

Merry, Merry Christmas, one and all.

Most Used Words In 2010

I found this app on Facebook and thought it was amusing.

Bethany McLean Thinks It Is Mean To Write About Her

Bethany McLean says she’s shocked (shocked!) to discover it hurts when people write forceful things about you.

Sayeth Mrs. Berkowitz:

Q: You met Sean Berkowitz, the man who would become your husband, while covering the Enron trial, where he was the lead prosecutor. You briefly became the subject of news coverage, mostly by bloggers, when your romance was revealed shortly after the trial ended. How did it feel on the other side of the news?

A. It has made me treat people differently. You have an obligation to treat people fairly. Once you’ve been written about, you see how hurtful it can be. So much of what goes on on the Internet is just cowardly bullying. I have not liked it at all.

Hm. I wonder if she’s referring to me.