A Woman Of Conviction--WaPo (Lay's Wife Is NOT Going to Jail, Yet)

[Demeter]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/09/AR2006060901922.html?referrer=email


A Woman Of Conviction
Her Husband May Go to Prison, but Linda Lay Is Keeping the Faith

By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 10, 2006; C01


...
Retreat isn't the natural inclination of a woman who went from secretary to socialite, who once overnighted as a guest in the White House and flitted among her seven homes aboard private jets with the mogul husband she still calls Kenny Boy. But for Linda Lay, these are days of curtains-drawn seclusion, a summer of waiting for her husband to be sentenced. Since Kenneth Lay's fraud conviction last month in Houston, the notoriously ostentatious oil couple has been hiding out near Aspen, Colo., renting where they once owned four separate properties, praying where they once partied.

...


In their 24 years together, Linda has been an omnipresent sidekick, jetting with her husband from Houston and Paris to India and beyond when he ruled the energy sector and ran Enron Corp. But she also stood by her man after the company was brought low by scandal -- and her husband became a caricature of greed. She listened impassively as their social triumphs were rendered into damning testimony. In the front row she sat, never missing a day, never wearing black, always positioned so her husband could swivel just slightly in his chair at the defense table to catch her eye for a supportive glance or reassuring smile. She joked lightly with a media that scrutinized her down to the jewels in her wristwatch.
.....

For nearly a generation, the Lay family has been inextricably linked to Enron, first as a company where both husband and wife collected paychecks, and then as their blended family of five children and a dozen grandchildren became the preeminent beneficiaries of Enron's largesse. Ken collected $220 million in cash and stock during Enron's last three years; exactly what's left, and where it is, remains a subject of debate and litigation. The government is expected to move to seize assets sometime later this year.

Linda Lay is a second wife: her hair always perfectly in place, her figure trim at 61, her St. John knit outfits reflecting wealth in muted hues. But she is far from an adornment, as she is sometimes characterized in the media coverage of Enron's demise. A secretary to Lay for a time when they both worked for Florida Gas Co., the former Linda Phillips eventually moved to Houston and came to work as an assistant for another Enron executive. After raising three children on her own after a divorce, she married Lay in 1982 and started investing in real estate, including multimillion dollar properties in Aspen and Galveston, Tex., that the family has since sold. She also managed the family's charitable foundation, deciding on her own, her husband testified, to sell 500,000 shares of Enron stock before the company announced its merger with Dynegy Inc. had collapsed in late 2001. Linda Lay has never been charged with wrongdoing stemming from Enron's misfortune.
.....
"Tonight Show" host Jay Leno lampooned the couple. "She went on to say they've lost all their money," Leno said. "Luckily, they've still got plenty of everybody else's money."

For the Lays, Enron always was a family affair. Daughter Elizabeth, a lawyer who helped coordinate her father's defense just weeks after giving birth to her second child, once worked at a subsidiary business. Son Mark served as a vice president leading its paper division. Linda's son, Robert "Beau" Herrold, managed Lay's finances. A son-in-law worked for the family's charitable foundation. And Ken and Linda often took a set of relatives along when they flew overseas on business, according to trial testimony, which included itineraries of the Lay's personal and business trips. One such document reminded staff to prepare fruit and cheese trays and hot dinners.

The interlocking relationship between the Lay family and the company he founded came full circle after the verdict, when Linda and three of the children stepped forward, red-eyed from crying, to pledge the deeds to their homes on the promise Ken Lay would not flee the country before his Sept. 11 sentencing. Each of them solemnly raised their right hand.

Staff researcher Richard Drezen contributed to this report.

A LITTLE GOSSIP, A LITTLE FACT, AND SOME SHOCKING REVELATIONS---LONG BUT ENTERTAINING, IN A SCHADENFREUDE SORT OF WAY.

[acmavm]

1. Nice whitewash of a family that profited on illegal and immoral

means of earning a rather lucrative living. If the kiddies and grandkiddies were so damn involved, then they knew exactly what had gone on, how the old snake was defrauding everybody while lining his own pockets. In fact, I might have felt some pity for the kiddies/grandkiddies if they would have left their 'close' connection to the old bastard out of the story.

As for his wife, how long has she been such a good christian? Is this religious epiphany a relatively new thing? Like maybe since Kenny Boy got indicted?

[Demeter]

2. kick