Former Enron Exec Will Pay $1.49 Million

[Nambe]

WASHINGTON (Reuters)

Enron Corp.'s former director of investor relations has agreed to pay $1.49 million to settle fraud charges related to the bankrupt energy company, U.S. securities regulators said on Wednesday.

Mark Koenig has also agreed to plead guilty to a related criminal charge and cooperate with the government's continuing investigation, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said.

Koenig, who was an Enron executive vice president, settled with the SEC without admitting or denying the charges. ..

Ride Don’t Drive * * It’s Global Cool

[lastknowngood]

1. Great deal steal a billion be fined 1.5 mil. america what a country

n/t

[mom cat]

3. Chump change and a scolding......

:wtf:

[prolesunited]

2. And Martha Stewart is going to jail?!?!

That's justice for you. :eyes:

[truthisfreedom]

4. yeah, but she's a woman... so it's entirely different. trying to save 200k

is way more devious and criminal than stealing billions.

[AP]

6. She was trying to save 100s of millions in her OWN stock. She thought

she was better off saying she was totally innocent than admitting that she did something wrong because she was worried that the value of her own company would fall if its trade mark were tarnished.

[AP]

5. He's probably spent more in a weekend on booze & women...

This guy probably has story to tell about why Enron planned a year earlier to lock out investors from selling stock during the month when the stock was set to tank (which gave insiders a chance to sell their shares at prices that weren't pushed down by a flood of pension-holders' shares).

He might also be able to tell us a little something about what exactly encouraged state employee pension funds in FL, OH, and CT to buy Enron shares when the company clearly was already on life support.

[Zan_of_Texas]

7. Well, the Florida portion of the program has a number of flashing red lts.

Could the fact that an Alliance person was on the Enron board have influenced Florida's wrong-way purchases of Enron stock?

Could the fact that Jeb Bush was the top of the appointing tree for the Florida pension fund have had an influence?

N. Y. Times
March 3, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/03/business/yourmoney/03ALLI.html?pagewanted=print&position=bottom

Riding an Avalanche to the End
At 11th Hour, He Bought Enron. But Why?

By LESLIE WAYNE

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Three months into the Enron scandal, many mysteries remain unsolved. Outside of those slowly unraveling in Houston, one of the biggest concerns the Florida state pension fund, which lost $328 million — among the largest losses suffered by any Enron shareholder. All fall, as Enron's stock plunged, Alliance Capital and its star money manager, Alfred Harrison, bought more and more Enron shares for the Florida fund.

Exactly why he did so is the subject of much debate here, where newspapers have chronicled growing anger among pensioners and politicians. The Florida attorney general is investigating Mr. Harrison and Alliance, which the state has since fired, and is threatening a lawsuit. State legislators have convened a special committee — complete with hearings and threats of subpoenas to haul Alliance executives here to explain themselves. For Alliance, one of the nation's largest money-management companies, it is a public humiliation. "Even the little old lady in Pasadena knew Enron was in big trouble," fumed state Representative Mark G. Flanagan, a Republican and chairman of the legislative committee investigating the losses caused by Mr. Harrison. "Every other investment manager was bailing out. He heard the same bad news. Yet he continued to buy. We don't have a good explanation why."

Certainly, no other public pension fund incurred such a large loss, which was also distinctive for its timing. The worse the news, the more Mr. Harrison bought. Even as Enron teetered on the brink, two weeks before filing for bankruptcy, Mr. Harrison bought nearly 1.3 million Enron shares for Florida. In the end, Florida's Enron holdings shrank to $2.1 million — pocket change for a $95 billion portfolio. Mr. Harrison's purchases were such a wrong-way bet that many people here cannot believe it was just a bad call; they have darker suspicions. One involves Frank Savage, an Enron board member who was an Alliance executive and who, along with Mr. Harrison, is a member of the Alliance board. Did he encourage any of Mr. Harrison's purchases of Enron shares?

This theory, denied by both Alliance and Mr. Savage's lawyer, is under investigation by Robert A. Butterworth, the state's attorney general, and by a United States Senate panel whose members include Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida. Another hypothesis involves Gov. Jeb Bush, one of the three trustees of the Florida fund, officially called the Florida Retirement System. In this highly partisan state, where the presidential vote count in 2000 further inflamed political passions, the question is whether Governor Bush, a Republican, was behind the Enron stock purchases. That suggestion has been denied by the fund's executive director and its two other trustees, who said the governor had no role in picking stocks, whether of Enron or of any company. Governor Bush, who is being criticized for having supported Enron's business interests on the local level and for having invested in an Enron partnership, is in fact among those calling for an investigation of Alliance. <MORE>


The purchases cost the Florida pension fund over $300 million.

<> August 2001 -- Shortly after Jeffrey K. Skilling resigned as Enron's chief executive, Harrison bought $26.1 million worth of Enron stock for around $36 a share.

<> After Enron announced in October 2001 that it had lost $1.2 billion from side partnerships and the Securities and Exchange Commission opened an investigation, Mr. Harrison bought $7.1 million more at $22 a share.

<> After Andrew Fastow was ousted on Oct. 24, 2001 Harrison bought an additional $16.1 million at $16 to $12 a share.

<> Finally, after Enron announced in November 2001 that it had overstated profits, Mr. Harrison bought $12.1 million more at $9 a share.

Enron declared banruptcy in the first days of December 2001.

[Dover]

8. ALL thieves ought to have the option of simply paying a fine or serving

time. Petty thieves get no such choice. The SEC laws should be changed to make these frauds and theft criminal.