安然前首席财务官的忏悔

    他问听众：“我为什么会在这里？首先我要说，我在这里的原因是我曾经犯过罪……我造成过不可估量的损失，永远也不可能弥补。但我试图通过做报告，特别是为学生或董事做报告，来帮助人们了解我为什么会做这样的事，我是怎样越陷越深的，以及他们可能要采用怎样的思路才不会重蹈我的覆辙。”

    法斯托接着说：“我在这里的另一个原因是，在我看来，如今的情况比安然出事时还要糟糕十倍……现在人们正在重复安然做过的事和我做过的事，而且很多时候他们做的这么出格，让我这个安然前首席财务官都脸红。”他提到了一直广为使用的表外机构以及公司养老金计划中夸大的预估财务数字。

    法斯托说，他遭到指控的原因是“技术性违反证券法规”——但那不是“他被判有罪的主要原因”。他“最严重的罪名”是，他主导的那些交易，“故意给安然制造了一个假象——让安然看起来很健康，但实际上并不是这样。”

    法斯托解释说：“会计法规和证券法规都很模糊，它们很复杂……我在安然所做的事以及我们作为一家公司所做的事不是把这种复杂性和模糊性看作问题，而是把它们当作机会。”唯一的问题是，“规则是否允许——或者说规则是否允许这样进行解释。”

    法斯托坚持说每项交易都得到了批准——律师、会计师、管理层和董事会的批准。但他指出，安然案还是成为“历史上最大的会计诈骗案。”他带着讽刺的口吻问道：“已经得到批准的……又怎么会成为诈骗呢？”

    法斯托说，因为它有误导性——而且他知道这一点。他对听众们说：“我知道那样做不对，我知道我所做的事情会误导别人。但我并不认为这样做违法。我的想法是：游戏就是这么玩的。摆在你面前的是一套复杂的规则，而你的目标是让这些规则为你所用。这就是我犯的错误。”

    讲了大约20分钟后，法斯托开始回答问题。虽然会议组织方对此表示担心，但法斯托依然坚持这样做。达拉斯警察局前诈骗调查员、总部设在奥斯丁的ACFE首席执行官詹姆士•莱特利说：“很多人仍然很愤怒。我担心会有人捣乱。”

    ACFE每年都会邀请一位“污点演讲人”在他们的大会上发言。但邀请法斯托在商务社交网站LinkedIn的留言板上引起了异常负面的反应。有人表示不满：“对于所有可以在大会上发言的诚信而可敬的调查员来说，这个邀请无异于打了他们所有人一个耳光。”也有人总结说：“他简直是人渣。”还有人这样留言：“我认为他是工于心计的罪犯，和为了得到别人的钱而持枪抢银行的暴徒一样坏。”

    但莱特利没有理会这些批评。“作为诈骗审查师，如果你不想和诈骗者打交道，那你就该换个工作。”莱特利说他先和法斯托见了一面，目的是看看他“会不会有任何的含糊其辞。我和他谈话的过程中，他既不躲也不闪，连眼睛也不眨一下。”ACFE宣传材料在显著位置说明，法斯托是无偿在会上发言（ACFE承担了他的差旅费用）。

    "Why am I here?" he asked. "First of all, let me say I'm here because I'm guilty ... I caused immeasurable damage ... I can never repair that. But I try, by doing these presentations, especially by meeting with students or directors, to help them understand why I did the things I did, how I went down that path, and how they might think about things so they also don't make the mistakes I made."

    "The last reason I'm here," Fastow continued, "is because, in my opinion, the problem today is 10 times worse than when Enron had its implosion ... The things that Enron did, and that I did, are being done today, and in many cases they're being done in such a manner that makes me blush -- and I was the CFO of Enron." He cited the continuing widespread use of off-balance-sheet vehicles, as well as inflated financial assumptions embedded in corporate pension plans.

    Fastow said he was prosecuted "for not technically complying with certain securities rules" -- but that wasn't "the important reason why I'm guilty." The "most egregious reason" for his culpability, he said, was that the transactions he spearheaded "intentionally created a false appearance of what Enron was -- it made Enron look healthy when it really wasn't."

    "Accounting rules and regulations and securities laws and regulation are vague," Fastow explained. "They're complex ... What I did at Enron and what we tended to do as a company [was] to view that complexity, that vagueness ... not as a problem, but as an opportunity." The only question was "do the rules allow it -- or do the rules allow an interpretation that will allow it?"

    Fastow insisted he got approval for every single deal -- from lawyers, accountants, management, and directors -- yet noted that Enron is still considered "the largest accounting fraud in history." He asked rhetorically, "How can it be that you get approvals ... and it's still fraud?"

    Because it was misleading, Fastow said -- and he knew it. "I knew it was wrong," he told the crowd. "I knew that what I was doing was misleading. But I didn't think it was illegal. I thought: That's how the game is played. You have a complex set of rules, and the objective is to use the rules to your advantage. And that was the mistake I made."

    After speaking for about 20 minutes, Fastow took questions. He insisted on this despite the trepidations of conference organizers. "A lot of people are still angry," explained James Ratley, a former Dallas police department fraud investigator and the Austin-based group's CEO. "I was cautious that someone would create a disturbance."

    The fraud group invites a "criminal speaker" to address its convention every year. But Fastow's invitation drew unusually acidic comments on a LinkedIn message board. "A total slap in the face to all of the honest and respectable investigators that could be utilized as a presenter," one person fulminated. "Just scum," was another's summary. "To be blunt," a third person wrote, "I see him as a calculating low life, as bad as an armed robber who would shoot up a bank to get the people's money."

    But Ratley dismissed the criticism. "If you're a fraud examiner and you don't want to deal with a fraud perpetrator, you ought to change professions." Ratley said he had met with Fastow to screen him "for any type of evasiveness. He has not dodged, ducked, or blinked since I started talking with him." ACFE made a point of noting prominently in promotional materials that Fastow was not paid to speak. (The group did cover his travel expenses).