Lawmakers ready to grill Lay; unclear whether he'll answer

Sparse accomadations were created to at the new Stoddard County Regional Juvenile Detention Center located in Bloomfield. By Marcy Gordon ~ The Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- The man who sat atop Enron's "house of cards" is to be grilled this week by lawmakers who say they have strong evidence of illegal activity surrounding the company's collapse. Whether they manage to crack Kenneth Lay's silence remains to be seen.

Lay, Enron's former chairman and a friend and political backer of President Bush, could testify at a Senate hearing Tuesday, a week after he pulled out of two scheduled Capitol Hill appearances.

Two subpoenas

Two committees have issued subpoenas compelling Lay to come. So far, he has not given Congress notice of any plans to invoke his right not to answer questions.

Witnesses who invoke their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination customarily tell Congress in advance. But little in the Enron affair has been unfolding according to custom.

A House investigative subcommittee heard hours of conflicting testimony last week from Jeffrey Skilling, who was Enron's chief executive officer, and other top company officials.

Skilling said he knew few details of the complex web of partnerships that brought the energy trading company to ruin, and he insisted he was never warned of problems with the arrangements. He resigned in August before Houston-based Enron's troubles became public.

Lay, who resigned Jan. 23, was the most powerful symbol of the failed company, which was ranked as the nation's seventh largest before it crumbled. He has yet to speak publicly about the calamity.

Minutes of Enron board meetings from late 1997 to mid-2000 show that Lay and other directors had detailed information about the partnerships. Yet Lay's wife, Linda, has said there were some things he was not told.

Hiding debts

The nearly 4,000 partnerships -- with names like Jedi and Chewco, Raptor and Big Doe -- kept some $500 million in debt off Enron's balance sheet and hidden from investors and securities regulators. They also provided stunning windfalls to some Enron executives. Michael Kopper, for one, saw an investment of $125,000 become $10.5 million in less than three years.

The former Enron executive who ran the partnerships, Andrew Fastow, collected at least $30 million for his efforts. He and Kopper cited their constitutional protection against self-incrimination and declined to answer questions at Thursday's dramatic hearing -- as did two current Enron executives.