Fastow Gets 6 Years
Written by Michael on September 26th, 2006
Former Enron Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow was sentenced to 6 years in Federal prison today after initially agreeing to serve 10. Fastow sought and received leniency after his supporters, including the Federal Prosecutors said he was a transformed man and was invlauable to the investigation.
the judge said he deserved a lighter sentence because Fastow has been persecuted after Enron’s failure and because his family has suffered enough. Fastow’s wife already has served a year for her role in the scandal.
“Prosecution is necessary, but persecution was not,” U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt said. “These factors call for mercy.”
This is a timely story because I just finished reading Kurt Eichenwald’s The Conspiracy of Fools which was one of the best stories I have ever read, fiction or non-fiction. The story was written incredibly well with amazing attention to detail. It’s a fascinating, fascinating story that you will be glued to for days (it’s a bit long).
After reading Conspiracy of Fools and seeing Alex Gibney’s Enron, The Smartest Guys In The Room, I truly believe that these guys didn’t set out to explicity break the law. They started out with small mistakes initiated by incredibly incompetent executive management and then were tempted to add to their fortunes and cover up their past sins. If you enjoyed Barbarians at the Gate (the true story of the RJR Nabisco LBO) or has an interest in how large corporations function at the top, I highly recommend this. There’s also an audio version which is narrated very well but if you go that route, spring for the unabridged version.
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Hmm it didn’t post the comment I just made. Maybe it didn’t like the HTML I put in it. Anyway was just saying you shoulda posted this earlier or I shoulda ordered some books from Amazon later. I just got some books in the mail today that I ordered a few days ago. Lovely Bones and Desert to Dream. Thanks for the email on that one. I could use another coffee table book. There’s some pretty good pics in there. Let me know if you want to see it and I’ll bring it into work.
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9 pm at night and we are getting thunderstorms. Looks like the line we are experiencing right now is the only thunder in the lower 48. Jealous?? Love, Ma
P.S. Remember the Richard A. Clarke book , “Against All Enemies” I gave you? Well much of the Clinton/Bush controversy on TV right now is covered in the book. It certainly was interesting reading.
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Yes, I am jealous, especially since we’re getting a last blast heat wave with no real end in sight. It’s 6:20 pm and still in the upper 70’s in Fall City.
Yeah, that was a great book, read it cover to cover on a flight from Dayton to Seattle. I think you’d like this one too. It’s got a lot of accounting stuff (you will find yourself saying OH MY GOD at least once every chapter when you hear what they were doing and why they thought it was right) and some very interesting real characters.