El Paso Executive Found Dead in Apparent Suicide
The treasurer of El Paso Corp., one of several energy-trading companies reeling over questions about its accounting practices, was found shot dead in an apparent suicide at his home, police said Monday.
Whether the death of Charles Dana Rice was linked to the company’s recent financial worries was not known. But word of his death sent shares of El Paso stock down $3.70 to close at $21.95 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Wall Street executives who dealt with El Paso said it was widely known that Rice had suffered from heart and kidney problems.
A neighbor, Donna Miller, said Rice was undergoing dialysis, and she believed he was on a list to receive a kidney transplant
Some El Paso subsidiaries are under investigation by federal regulators for allegedly withholding capacity on a key pipeline, causing natural gas prices to spike to record levels in California in late 2000 and early 2001.
Rice had no role in the California price manipulation case, said Harvey Morris, the lead lawyer handling the matter for the state Public Utilities Commission.
Police said the body of Rice, 47, was found at his home in Houston at about 1 p.m. Sunday. The cause of death was an “apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound,” said Joe Laud, a spokesman for the Houston Police Department.
In a statement, the company said it was deeply saddened by Rice’s death.
Rice’s death follows the Jan. 25 suicide of former Enron Corp. Vice Chairman J. Clifford Baxter, who shot himself in the head while parked in his black Mercedes.
El Paso said last week that earnings for this year and next would be below expectations, and that it would slash energy-trading activities in half by cutting 300 jobs.
The energy-trading industry has been swept up in a scandal about so-called wash trades, in which companies buy and sell energy at the same price to pump up trading volumes and revenues. El Paso said last week that it had not taken part in the sham trades.
Rice joined El Paso in 1977, became director of the company’s planning department in 1992, director of the accounting department in 1996 and vice president and treasurer in 1998. He was appointed senior vice president in 1999.
