Sources: Enron’s Fastows Are Negotiating Plea Deals
Lawyers for former Enron Corp. executives Andrew S. Fastow and Lea W. Fastow are in plea negotiations with federal prosecutors in Houston, working on a deal that would send Andrew Fastow to prison for 10 years and put his wife behind bars for several months, according to sources familiar with the case.
Andrew Fastow, the Houston energy company’s former chief financial officer, is scheduled to go to trial in April on dozens of money laundering, fraud and other criminal charges. Prosecutors have accused him of masterminding a network of secretive partnerships to hide company debt and siphon off tens of millions of dollars for himself and his relatives. Fastow, who has denied wrongdoing and said his actions were approved by his superiors, faces more than 100 years in prison.
Under the terms of a plea agreement being hammered out with federal prosecutors at the Enron Task Force, Fastow would serve 10 years and would agree to help investigators probing fraud at the energy firm, two sources said. Investigators continue to probe what former Enron chief executives Kenneth L. Lay and Jeffrey K. Skilling may have known about the company’s worsening financial condition and mounting debts at the same time they sold Enron stock.
The status of the talks about Lea Fastow, who is scheduled to go to trial Feb. 10 on tax and conspiracy charges, was in doubt late Wednesday. That was after U.S. District Judge David Hittner rejected a deal that would have put her behind bars for five months and ensured that she would be free to care for the couple’s two young sons while her husband served his sentence. He did so because he wanted more say in the length of her sentence, according to a source familiar with the judge’s decision.
It is unclear how Hittner’s ruling will affect Andrew Fastow’s plea negotiations, if at all.
The plea talks were first reported by the Houston Chronicle. Sources cautioned that the negotiations could still break down and that federal judges would need to approve the deals.
