Former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay has spoken out for the first time since the company’s collapse and placed the blame for the firm’s failure squarely on the shoulders of finance chief Andrew Fastow.
In a lengthy interview with the New York Times, Lay protested his innocence and spoke of his vilification in the media and the dramatic slump in his personal finances.
Lay said his wife had compared their lives to an episode of the science fiction series, The Twilight Zone.
According to reports, Lay could be indicted on criminal charges as early as this week.
He said if that were to happen it would be a ”great miscarriage of justice”.
He would plead not guilty if he faced charges.
”I know in my mind, I did nothing wrong and nothing criminal.”
Enron collapsed in late 2001. The firm filed for bankruptcy after it em-erged that a series of off-balance-sheet partnerships, many controlled by senior Enron executives including Fas-tow, were being used to inflate the company’s profits.
Lay said that at the time he saw nothing suspicious about the off-balance-sheet ventures and had no reason to distrust his finance chief.
Fastow, alongside a handful of other former Enron finance executives, has since pleaded guilty to numerous fraud charges. He is now cooperating with government prosecutors.
Lay said: ”At our core, regrettably, we had a chief financial officer and a few other people who, in fact, mismanaged the company’s balance sheet and finances and enriched themselves in such a way that once we got into a stressful environment in the marketplace, the company collapsed.” — Â