NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Ex-Enron CFO Andrew Fastow faced new charges of fraud, insider trading and falsifying records Thursday while his wife and seven other former officials were charged for their roles in the collapse of the former energy company in late 2001.
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Lea Fastow, left, wife of ex-Enron CFO Andrew Fastow, was indicted Thursday. |
With Thursday's grand jury indictment, 19 people have been charged in the Justice Department's ongoing probe. But the two men who ran the company that inflated profits by hiding debt, Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay, have not been tied to accounting fraud.
Fastow, who was indicted last year on 78 counts of wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy, was named in a new 109-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Houston.
Thursday's indictment also charges former Enron Treasurer Ben Glisan and former finance executive Dan Boyle with securities fraud, insider trading, falsification of Enron's accounting records and tax fraud.
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CNNfn's Jen Rogers reports from Houston on additional charges filed in the government's case against former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow and indictments against Fastow's wife and seven former executives.
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The jury returned a six-count indictment charging Lea Fastow, former Enron assistant treasurer, with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering conspiracy and filing false tax returns.
"Indictments today are a significant milestone in our unabated efforts to expose and punish the vast array of criminal conduct related to the collapse of Enron Corporation," said Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, who heads DOJ's Corporate Fraud Task Force. "The indictments do not end by any means our investigation, and the investigation is active and ongoing," he added.
Thompson declined to go into details about the indictment of Fastow's wife, Lea Fastow. The former assistant treasurer at Enron walked into the Internal Revenue Service office in Houston with her husband early Thursday and surrendered.
"Lea Fastow is innocent," said a statement issued by her lawyers. "Mrs. Fastow is being charged in order to put pressure on her husband of 18 years, Andy Fastow."
Click here to read the indictments
The grand jury also returned a 218 count superseding indictment expanding charges relating to Enron's failed Internet division, Enron Broadband Services.
The Securities and Exchange Commission also leveled civil charges against five of the seven, all former executives of Enron's once highly touted broadband technology division, alleging fraud to inflate the price of Enron's stock. The market regulatory body accused the five men of reaping more than $150 million in unlawful profits.
The SEC previously charged two other Enron broadband executives, Kevin Howard and Michael Krautz, with falsifying records and quarterly reports for a sham transaction.
“ Prosecuting [Dan Boyle] is like prosecuting the piano player in a whorehouse. ”
Bill Rosch
Boyle's attorney
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Ken Rice, the broadband chief, Glisan and four other division executives arrived at the Houston FBI office within a half-hour Thursday morning and did not speak to reporters.
Boyle was the first to turn himself in.
"Prosecuting this guy is like prosecuting the piano player in a whorehouse," Boyle's attorney Bill Rosch said after arriving with his client.
The other former broadband executives who surrendered Thursday were Joseph Hirko, Kevin Hannon and Scott Yeager. A fifth former broadband executive, Rex Shelby, was expected to turn himself in at a later date due to a family emergency.
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The seven who surrendered Thursday were expected to be taken from the FBI office to the Houston federal courthouse for initial appearances.
The latest government indictments brought the number of individuals charged in the Enron case to 19, with six of those already entering guilty pleas.
The December 2001 bankruptcy of Enron, once the nation's No. 7 company by revenue, went far to shatter confidence in corporate accounting, led to the conviction of Arthur Andersen, and inspired President Bush last summer to sign a sweeping law aimed at reforming corporate governance.
-- Reuters contributed to the story.
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