Enron's Lay fights back

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Former Enron chief tells Larry King he's responsible for Enron, but not for hidden criminal conduct.

Former Enron Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Kenneth Lay said Monday in a television interview that he takes full responsibility for events at Enron -- both the positive and negative -- but denies he is to blame for criminal conduct that caused the collapse of the Houston energy giant.

"I take responsibility for what happened at Enron, both good and bad, but I cannot take responsibility for criminal conduct that I was not aware of," Lay said on CNN's "Larry King Live."

Lay told King that he knew a lot about Enron's operations when he was the company's chairman and CEO. "But keep in mind that Enron was a company with about 30,000 employees in about 30 different countries around the world," he told King. "You have to delegate quite a bit of authority to your senior officers."

Lay was indicted last week on 11 counts of wire, bank and securities fraud and making false statements to banks. The former Enron chief pleaded not guilty to all charges and was released on $500,000 bail.

In his first prime-time interview since the indictment, Lay blamed former Enron Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow for the company's demise, saying Fastow had misled him.

"He (Fastow) was misleading me on the board, as far as the balance sheet and the liquidity position," he said. "I still find it disgusting as to what happened, because of what he did."

The former Enron chief told CNN that he has been a close friend to President Bush, but he acknowledged that they have not been in touch since the collapse of Enron.

http://money.cnn.com/2004/07/12/news/newsmakers/ken_lay/index.htm?cnn=yes