Enron founder to be indicted today

Kenneth Lay, the founder and former chairman and CEO of US energy giant Enron who says he committed no crimes at the scandal-ridden company, has been indicted on criminal charges.

The highly-anticipated action came yesterday, two and a half years into a methodical investigation that has produced charges against some of Lay’s once most highly trusted lieutenants, including his hand-picked protégé, former CEO Jeffrey Skilling.

“I have done nothing wrong, and the indictment is not justified,” Lay, aged 62, said in a statement after learning of the indictment.

The indictment is to be unsealed after Lay surrenders to the FBI at around 5pm Irish time today.

Prosecutors from the US Justice Department’s Enron Task Force presented an indictment to Houston Magistrate Mary Milloy yesterday, and at their request she sealed both the indictment and an arrest warrant, the sources said.

The specific charges remained under seal. A hearing before Judge Milloy was scheduled for today.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission also was expected to bring civil fraud charges against Lay today, including making false and misleading statements and insider trading, a person familiar with the case said.

Prosecutors have aggressively pursued the one-time celebrity CEO and friend and contributor to US President George Bush who led Enron’s rise to No 7 in the Fortune 500 and resigned within weeks of its stunning failure. Lay is the 30th and highest-profile individual charged.

Skilling succeeded Lay as CEO in February 2001 and resigned abruptly six months later, just weeks before the scandal broke.

He was indicted in February on nearly three dozen counts of fraud and other crimes.

Waiting to testify for the prosecution is former finance chief Andrew Fastow, who pleaded guilty to two conspiracy counts in January.

Fastow admitted to orchestrating partnerships and financial schemes to hide Enron debt and inflate profits while pocketing millions of dollars for himself.

Enron’s collapse led to a series of corporate scandals that prompted the US Congress’s passage of sweeping reforms to securities laws with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act two years ago.

Thousands of Enron’s workers lost their jobs.