Jeff Skilling could possibly die in jail:
Jeffrey K. Skilling was sentenced to 24 years and 4 months in prison for his role in the pervasive fraud and conspiracy that led to the bankruptcy of Enron, closing the book on the government’s prosecution of top executives at the once-highflying energy company.
Skilling’s Enron Employment AgreementEnron’s fall ushered in a wave of prosecutions against corruption at the highest levels of American business. Since then the Justice Department has tightened the tourniquet around high-level executives involved in white-collar crime, leading to a series of stiff prison sentences.
Mr. Skilling stood stoically in his black suit as Judge Simeon T. Lake III read his sentence, which narrowly missed being the longest one ever handed down to a white-collar criminal. That record still belongs to Bernard J. Ebbers, the former chief executive of WorldCom, who was sentenced to 25 years last year for his role in the $11 billion fraud that led to that company’s collapse.
Mr. Skilling’s sentence nevertheless amounts to almost life imprisonment for the 52-year-old former chief executive, who in one decade transformed Enron from a sleepy pipeline company into an energy-trading juggernaut. Accounting schemes he approved masked huge debt and cash flow problems at the company that led to its ultimate demise. Shareholders at Enron, once the seventh-largest company in the country, lost billions of dollars in stock and retirement savings.
“As the many victims have testified, his crimes have imposed on hundreds if not thousands a life sentence of poverty,” Judge Lake said, responding to criticism of the sentence as overly harsh.
Once in prison, Mr. Skilling could trim his sentence by 54 days a year with good behavior. And he could knock off one more year for participating in an inmate drug and alcohol treatment program, which the judge required.
Mr. Skilling has recently struggled with alcoholism. Despite being ordered not to drink by the court after a drunken scuffle with bar patrons in Manhattan in 2004, he was arrested last month by Dallas police for public intoxication and forced to spend a night in jail.
Most of my posts about the Enron leadership have been scathing- now that they are all dead or jailed or getting their due, it is worth noting the absolute tragedy of this on the micro and macro lavel. The macro is well-known, as we are all aware the damage that Skilling and his band of thieves inflicted on thousands of good people whose lives were, through no fault oftheir own, wrecked by this group of crooks.
But onthe micro level, it is also sad. Skilling and these guys were educated and, as far as society goes, the cream of the crop. They could have accomplished any number of positive things for themselves, their families, and society, and instead, they chose to gamble it for a few more bucks. To someone like me, who does not have nor ever will have a million dollars, it makes absolutely no sense. Skilling chose to have 200 million (and I am just making numbers up) rather 100 million dollars, more money than he would ever need when he already had more money than he ver needed, and he leveraged his life to do it. Out of sheer greed, he chose to throw away the rest of his life. For a few more dollars, he chose to give up the chance to ever wake up, have a cup of coffee and walk his dog. He will never again sit around the house during the holidays and drink egg nog with his wife, kids, and grandkids. He will never see his grandchildren play soccer. He won’t be there to comfort his wife as his friends die, nor will he be around to take care of his family.
He threw away his life for a few more dollars and screwed thousands (millions) of people in the process for nothing other than sheer greed, and that is truly a sad, sad thing.
scarshapedstar
Most of my posts about the Enron leadership have been scathing- now that they are all dead or jailed or getting their due
I think that ought to read “dead” or jailed. Ken Lay’s Speedee-Cremation makes the circumstances of Jim Morrison’s death look cut-and-dried. And then, of course, the courts coming through to secure his ill-gotten gains… hmmmmm.
SomeCallMeTim
He threw away his life for a few more dollars and screwed thousands (millions) of people in the process for nothing other than sheer greed, and that is truly a sad, sad thing.
It’s possible that what made him the “cream of the crop” is precisely the instinct to cut corners to win. It may not be a few million more; it might have been a good job and no millions vs. millions.
Jimmmm
He knew all that was at stake, John, but figured the system was rigged to ensure none of it would come to pass.
A lot of tragedies are just hubris applied to arrogance.
scarshapedstar
Also, John, I think you’re being entirely too kind when it comes to Enron’s actual business potential. IMO, it was, as the Rotten Library put it, “a sham ‘corporation’ dedicated to Mammon” from day one.
Aided and abetted, of course, by the swine-whores in the Republican Congress and George W. Bush, who greedily lapped up lifelong workers’ pensions from the Enron slop trough and used it to run attack ads about how Democrats don’t want you to be able to retire. Republicans seemed oddly enthusiastic about voting to metastatize this cancer upon American industry again and again with their deregulation schemes. Assholes.
“Nobody could have known” that it was a bullshit shell game, though! Well, okay, maybe a few people wondered why they couldn’t keep the fucking lights on in California, but if you can take down a Democratic governor then it’s all worth it. And if you can convince every rightwing moron (or at least every one I knew at the time) that this was really all the fault of liberals and price ceilings…
Why the fuck aren’t there 100 Republican congressmen in that cell with Skilling? That’s what really pisses me off. You act like these assholes acted alone. They went to Congress with a plan to lie, cheat, and steal, and Congress went along. As did Wall Street. As did Ahnold. Fuck ’em all.
Pb
Yeah, my heart bleeds. Anyone remember the Enron tapes?
Of course, without power, Grandma Millie could die due to the temperature extremes alone.
Jail is too good for those fuckers.
Pb
Yeah, good point:
Yet another corrupt stain on our country that still needs investigation–add it to the list. What are the odds that it ties in with Cheney and his energy task force meetings, too… oh, right, it did:
craigie
The difference between you and him is that you value those things.
teak111
As a californian, Skilling got what his hubris and arrogance deserve. I just wish it was Pelican Bay instead of club fed.
http://www.sfbappa.org/Awards/picturestory/picstory28.ex2.html
Davebo
That’s assuming he ever goes to jail.
Why the heck does it take six weeks for the Bureau of Prisons to decide where they are gonna put him?
Were they waiting thinking the judge might give him probation or what?
Punchy
Uh, Mr. Cole…please tell me you’ve heard of a Presidential pardon, right?
Not now….he’ll spend the next 27ish months with soap on a rope and several new girlfriends (unless he somehow Shawshanks it otta there), but at the end of GB’s term….I fully expect a “you did your time, now here’s freedom and a brand-new lobbyist gig”.
SeesThroughIt
Yup. Really, he should go to federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison and not the hoity-toity white-collar prison he’s bound to go to. Furthermore, when he’s brought into the cellblock of said federal prison, the guards should announce as loudly as possible, “This is Jeff Skilling–he’s a snitch!”
RSA
It really is too bad that restitution isn’t a practical possibility. I sometimes wonder why sentences for white collar crimes like Skilling’s are described as overly harsh. What’s the comparison? Thousands live in poverty rather than a comfortable retirement compared with, say, someone having been robbed at gunpoint?
mark
Maybe we should bring back the 90% max tax rate to save these people from themselves.
Jay C
Uhh, John: nice as it might be to imagaine Jeffrey Skilling croaking grey, old, and alone after decades in Federal slam, (and believe me, I think it would be only right for this crook!) – the reality is that white-collar criminals rarely, if ever, serve out their full sentences. Barring some Series of Unfortunate Events – like him being spotting (or framed for) shanking another prisoner – the chances that ol’ Jeff will be spending Christmas of 2011 or 2012 in the bosom of his family are pretty good. After all, if robbers and murderers can get parole, why should corporate crooks not qualify?
Tulkinghorn
Hear, Hear!
Zifnab
When you say it like that, John, he almost sounds human.
Tony Alva
Great post John… I had the same thoughts when I saw Bernie Ebbers crying as they hauled his ass off to jail for the rest of his life. I narrowly missed working for him and knew of his assholey ways when our merger was under consideration, but seeing hauled off to jail didn’t make me feel sad for him, but completely miffed by how this guy could gamble away what should have been the best years of his life for 20,000 square foot of mansion floor space vs. 10,000.
Blind greed…
Fledermaus
John if you get a chance pick up a copy of “Smartest Guys in the Room” it’s a great post mortem on how things went so wrong at Enron.
MNPundit
“The very rich are not even remotely human.”
I don’t remember where I read that, but it consistently proves itself to be true. Neitzche’s old masters indeed.
Sirkowski
They got rich ‘cuz they were sociopath. And like all sociopath, they were too fucking dumb to know when to stop. And now Skilling is going where all sociopath belong.
Redleg
I don’t know that Skilling is “cream of the crop.” He had the opportunity to get an Ivy league education and MBA- I don’t know to what extent that was done on his own merits, separate from family or other influential parties. I don’t know when Skilling became a greedy fuck-face either, but it’s possible he was a dickhead early on and used his unique talents as a dickhead to make it big in business.
Or perhaps Skilling is a rags to riches to prison story.
Kirok
Yeah, Jeff apparently doesn’t have the stroke to fake his own death, so he gets to take the fall. Not that he doesn’t deserve it…
Jess
This film is even more interesting when you watch it with “The Weather Underground,” a documentary about the radical left terrorist-lite group, the Weathermen. The parallels are fascinating, showing how a sense of mission, however warped, can completely take over one’s sense of humanity. The differences are also striking–most of the members of the Weathermen did pull back from the brink, while the worst criminals of capitalism rarely do, it seems. I found those two films a useful warning, since I tend to be moderate in my thinking, but an extremist in my emotional life; I think many of us could easily get caught up in similar insanity (as we did to some degree after 9/11).
Another fascinating film is “The Corporation”–this should be required viewing for all Americans. Enron is just the tip of the iceburg.
Hans and Frans
No worries Jeff, we are going to Pump <clap!>, You Up!
With good behavior and attendance in that AA program you’ll only be 72 when you get out.