I mentioned last week, after watching the excellent Enron documentary
The Smartest Guys in the Room, that one of the questions it provokes is
whatever became of Lou Pai. He is the lesser-known comrade of the now
infamous Skilling, Lay, and Fastow, who (apparently) took more cash out
of the company than anyone else.This long, fascinating investigative piece about Pai by Alan Prendergast, in Denver's Westword, can't completely answer that question, since it was published in 2002, before the ramifications of the Enron debacle had fully played out. But it tells me a lot more than I had known before. It is also the source of the illustration to the left, by Jay Bevenour. It concludes with reports on the efforts of Ken Salazar -- then Colorado Attorney General, now Secretary of the Interior -- to make peace between Pai and the neighbors around his hermit-like mountain stronghold. Thanks to Alf Hickey.
