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American Morning
'Minding Your Business'
Aired February 20, 2004 - 07:23 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, the government indicting one big fish at Enron. Is the biggest of all yet to come, though?
Andy Serwer back here minding your business on a Friday.
Good morning, Andy.
Nice to see you.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning.
Nice to see you.
HEMMER: Skilling is still sticking to his story.
SERWER: Yes, that's absolutely correct. Yesterday, high drama in Houston. Of course, Jeff Skilling facing the law. In a packed courtroom, he pled not guilty -- there he is walking in -- to 42 counts -- conspiracy, securities fraud. A hard charging executive charged with basically cooking the books, trying to create and inflate profits, hiding debt.
He was defiant yesterday, saying not guilty. A nice touch, I thought, reported in the "Wall Street Journal" -- he was not wearing a belt or a tie. He did not want to give prosecutors the satisfaction of removing them, they said.
He joined the company in 1990. He was only CEO from February of 2001 to August 2001, but prosecutors describe him as an architect of the entire scheme here that turned in to be a house of cards.
His attorneys saying that Skilling did nothing wrong.
Let's listen to what Dan Petrocelli, Skilling's attorney, had to say yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DANIEL PETROCELLI, ATTORNEY FOR SKILLING: Jeff Skilling has nothing to hide. He did not steal, he did not lie, he did not take anyone's money.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SERWER: You know, it's interesting, one of the prosecutors yesterday, Bill, though, made the point how can a man take credit for building the company when it looked so great and then deny all responsibility when it turned out to be nothing more than a house of cards, as I said earlier.
HEMMER: And those pictures we're watching takes us to the next obvious question, about Ken Lay. Is he in the crosshairs or not?
SERWER: He certainly is in the crosshairs. There's some interesting debate going on as to actually who is the big fish here, Skilling or Lay. Prosecutors seem to be suggesting now that Skilling is the ultimate target. They're still definitely going after Lay, but suggesting that perhaps he was kind of the guy maybe not so much in charge, that it was really Skilling.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired February 20, 2004 - 07:23 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, the government indicting one big fish at Enron. Is the biggest of all yet to come, though?
Andy Serwer back here minding your business on a Friday.
Good morning, Andy.
Nice to see you.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning.
Nice to see you.
HEMMER: Skilling is still sticking to his story.
SERWER: Yes, that's absolutely correct. Yesterday, high drama in Houston. Of course, Jeff Skilling facing the law. In a packed courtroom, he pled not guilty -- there he is walking in -- to 42 counts -- conspiracy, securities fraud. A hard charging executive charged with basically cooking the books, trying to create and inflate profits, hiding debt.
He was defiant yesterday, saying not guilty. A nice touch, I thought, reported in the "Wall Street Journal" -- he was not wearing a belt or a tie. He did not want to give prosecutors the satisfaction of removing them, they said.
He joined the company in 1990. He was only CEO from February of 2001 to August 2001, but prosecutors describe him as an architect of the entire scheme here that turned in to be a house of cards.
His attorneys saying that Skilling did nothing wrong.
Let's listen to what Dan Petrocelli, Skilling's attorney, had to say yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DANIEL PETROCELLI, ATTORNEY FOR SKILLING: Jeff Skilling has nothing to hide. He did not steal, he did not lie, he did not take anyone's money.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SERWER: You know, it's interesting, one of the prosecutors yesterday, Bill, though, made the point how can a man take credit for building the company when it looked so great and then deny all responsibility when it turned out to be nothing more than a house of cards, as I said earlier.
HEMMER: And those pictures we're watching takes us to the next obvious question, about Ken Lay. Is he in the crosshairs or not?
SERWER: He certainly is in the crosshairs. There's some interesting debate going on as to actually who is the big fish here, Skilling or Lay. Prosecutors seem to be suggesting now that Skilling is the ultimate target. They're still definitely going after Lay, but suggesting that perhaps he was kind of the guy maybe not so much in charge, that it was really Skilling.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
