| October 23, 2006 | - Former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling was sentenced to 24 years in jail. “I feel terrible about what happened,” Skilling said, referring to the company's collapse, which cost investors and employees more than $62 billion in devalued stock and pension plans. “That's not to say I did something wrong.”
| Source:
New York Times
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| September 25, 2006 | - U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt reduced the jail sentence of former Enron
CFO Andrew Fastow from ten years to six, citing the prolonged suffering of the Fastow family in his decision. “Prosecution is necessary, but persecution was not,” said the judge. “These factors call for mercy.”
| Source:
AP via Yahoo! News
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| July 6, 2006 | -
Ken Lay died.
| Source:
Houston Chronicle
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| May 25, 2006 | - Former Enron executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were found guilty of conspiracy and fraud.
| Source:
The New York Times
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| July 14, 2005 | - The directors of Enron gave themselves large raises.
| Source:
KLTV
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| July 8, 2004 | - Kenneth Lay, the former chairman and CEO of Enron, was finally indicted.
| Source:
New York Times
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| February 20, 2004 | - Jeffrey K. Skilling, the former CEO of Enron, was indicted for fraud.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 18, 2003 | - Merrill Lynch avoided criminal charges in the Enron affair by agreeing to let the government monitor some parts of its affairs for the next 18 months; the firm promised not to engage in any more shady business deals.
| Source:
New York Times
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| July 30, 2003 | - A Senate Finance Committee report revealed that the IRS had asked the SEC to investigate Enron in 1999, after it uncovered evidence that the company had bribed
Guatemalan officials.
| Source:
Houston Chronicle
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| May 2, 2003 | -
Enron, MCI, and other companies that overstated their earnings in order to inflate the value of their stock were in the process of filing for hundreds of millions of dollars in tax refunds from the government on the profits they fraudulently claimed.
| Source:
Wall Street Journal
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| April 1, 2003 | -
Federal energy regulators concluded that the California energy crisis of 2000-2001 was created by widespread market manipulation and misconduct by Enron and 30 other energy companies but signaled that they were unlikely to overturn $40 billion worth of long-term contracts that resulted from the scheme.
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| March 18, 2003 | -
The Federal Election Commission declared that there was “no reason to believe” that Enron hired Ralph Reed as a consultant as a way of making an off-the-books contribution to George W. Bush's 2000 presidential campaign.
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| October 8, 2002 | -
Enron's former chief financial officer was charged with fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy.
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| October 1, 2002 | -
Enron auctioned its “Crooked E” sign for $44,000.
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| May 28, 2002 | -
The White House admitted to a Senate investigation that it had many more contacts with Enron executives than had previously been disclosed.
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| April 2, 2002 | -
Playboy magazine was looking for models to pose in its upcoming “Women of Enron” pictorial.
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| March 5, 2002 | -
The Smithsonian National Museum of American History announced that it was in the market for Enron collectibles and that it had already purchased a copy of the company's famous code of ethics.
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| February 12, 2002 | -
Interesting details continued to emerge from the Enron scandal, such as the impressive ability of one company insider to turn a $5,800 investment into more than $1 million in about two months.
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| February 12, 2002 | -
The Senate Commerce Committee said it would subpoena Kenneth Lay, the former head of Enron, who cancelled his previously scheduled Congressional appearances.
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| February 5, 2002 | -
The General Accounting Office said it would file suit to force Vice President Dick Cheney to turn over records of his meetings with Enron officials, with whom he met five times to discuss energy policy.
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| February 5, 2002 | -
Thomas White, the secretary of the Army and a former Enron executive, said his division of Enron had done nothing wrong.
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| February 5, 2002 | -
The Justice Department warned the White House not to destroy any records pertaining to Enron.
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| February 5, 2002 | -
Kenneth Lay, the disgraced former head of Enron, cancelled two scheduled appearances before Congress, saying that the lawmakers had already passed judgment on him.
| |
| January 29, 2002 | -
Kenneth L.
Lay resigned as chairman of Enron as congressional hearings on the company's bankruptcy began, and President Bush said he was outraged that Enron had misled its investors and employees, noting that his own mother-in-law had lost $8,000 in the company's collapse.
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| January 29, 2002 | -
A former Enron executive who resigned because of the company's questionable financial practices was found dead in his car with a bullet in the brain, apparently self-inflicted.
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| January 22, 2002 | -
The Enron scandal continued to unfold.
Arthur Andersen and Company, the big accounting firm that served simultaneously as consultant and auditor for the Texas energy company, admitted that it had destroyed thousands of Enron-related documents.
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| January 22, 2002 | -
President Bush told some lies about his relationship with Kenneth Lay, the chairman of Enron, and it was revealed that the company, which had more than 900 subsidiaries in tax-haven countries and is slated to receive a $254 million corporate tax refund under President Bush's economic stimulus plan, paid no income tax at all in four of the last five years.
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| January 22, 2002 | -
Vice President Dick Cheney, citing executive privilege, was still refusing to release the records of his five meetings with Enron executives to discuss energy policy.
People were beginning to use the word “cover-up.”
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| January 15, 2002 | -
The United States Department of Justice appointed a special criminal task force to investigate the collapse of Enron, the Texas oil company.
Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the investigation, as did the entire United States Attorney's office in Houston, because of conflicts of interest.
| |
| January 15, 2002 | -
Kenneth L.
Lay, Enron's chairman, who called two different cabinet secretaries last fall before the company imploded, apparently fishing for a government bailout, has given more money to President Bush than anyone else — more than $550,000 to his political campaigns plus $100,000 for his inaugural committee.
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| January 15, 2002 | -
In the months before Enron's stock dropped from $86 to $.70 a share, company executives, including Lay, sold off $1.1 billion worth of stock.
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| January 15, 2002 | -
Vice President Dick Cheney, who also has close ties to Enron, was still hiding out somewhere.
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| January 8, 2002 | -
Senate Democrats were planning to subpoena documents from Enron executives to determine whether the collapse of the company, which had extraordinary influence with the Bush Administration, might yield a Whitewater-like scandal.
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| December 11, 2001 | -
Enron, the energy trading company with very close ties to President Bush, collapsed and filed the largest corporate bankruptcy in American history.
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| October 30, 2001 | - The House of Representatives decided to repeal the corporate alternative minimum tax in a putative economic stimulus package.
If signed into law, the repeal, which is retroactive to 1986, will this year result in $25.4 billion in tax refunds to corporations; seven large companies, including I.B.M. ($1.4 billion) and General Motors ($832 million), would receive $3.3 billion. Enron, the Houston energy company and a major Bush supporter, would get $254 million. Economists pointed out that such refunds do nothing to stimulate the economy.
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