Kurt Eichenwald, in Conspiracy of Fools, writes:
“The terrified voices from New York echoed through the Enron trading floor. One Enron trader had been on the line with Cantor Fitzgerald, based on the upper floors of One World Trade Center, when the first plane hit. The firm operated a computerized trading-reporting system used by trading desks, including at Enron, and now their screens had gone blank.
“The building’s burning,” one trader on the line said. “We’re supposed to get out. But I don’t think we can.”
Eventually the voices disappeared, and the Enron traders watched in hirror as the two towers collapsed- first Tower Two, then, not long after, Tower One, where the people that had just been speaking with had been trapped.
Few at Enron wanted to stay in the office. An emergency meeting was convened, led by [Greg] Whalley. Business, they decided, was shutting down for the day.”
It was Tuesday. Andy Fastow had a standing lunch date with his wife Lea. The Astros-Giants game that he was scheduled to watch that night was cancelled.
Jeff Skilling, less than a month in retirement, was doing not much of anything.
Dr. Lay had meetings scheduled, but after Enron let the employees leave, he left too and rescheduled the meetings for the next day.
In 2006, upon Skilling’s and Lay conviction, they were to be sentenced on September 11. It was later postponed to October 23, 2006.
Also, on that same day, former Enron Broadband Services CFO Kevin Howard was scheduled to be sentenced for his conviction on three counts of wire fraud, two counts of falsifications books and conspiracy to falsify books.
The date also has some relevance to the plight of the NatWest Three. The three NatWest Bankers were extradited under a controversial law that was passed after 9/11. It was designed to prosecute terror cases and supposed to be used only if the treaty was ratified by the USA – but neither of these conditions had been written into the language of the law and neither were fulfilled at the time of the Three’s extradition. (It was ratfied by the US in September 2006.)
Things They Say