安然前首席财务官的忏悔

    提问环节中，有人问法斯托对安然前首席执行官杰夫•斯基林获得减刑有什么看法。上个月，斯基林的刑期从24年减至14年。法斯托曾在审判过程中指证过斯基林，他对自己的前上司表示了相当大的同情。法斯托说：“进监狱很可怕。不可能觉得舒服。获得优待什么的都是无稽之谈……周围都是暴力倾向非常严重的人，非常不稳定的人。囚犯们想方设法让你觉得难受。但那并不是进监狱的坏处。进监狱的坏处在于不能和家人在一起。”（斯基林入狱后已经失去了父母和最小的儿子。）法斯托还说，减刑之后斯基林的刑期依然“具有毁灭性”。

    法斯托仍坚持认为，“安然并不需要在那个时候破产……安然其实不必破产，它可以经营下去。让安然在2001年12月初破产的决定是在当年10月做出的”，也就是首席执行官斯基林辞职之后。这一点引起了很大争议，但法斯托没有进一步做出解释。

    最后一个人问道：“许多人都在想这个问题。你在安然做的事及其对其他公司、养老金、股市以及人们的财富产生的影响让你受到了很多人的抨击。你怎么面对这些？对于谴责你作何反应？”

    法斯托低下头说：“嗯，首先，我活该。接受这一点非常困难。我并没有打算犯罪，当然也没有打算伤害任何人。要知道，我在安然任职期间算得上是个英雄人物，因为我帮公司做每个季度的报表。那时我觉得自己是在做好事，还觉得自己很聪明。但实际上并不是这样。”

    “每天早上醒来后，我就会拿出自己的囚犯号码牌。今天我把它带来了。它确保我能记住所有人，记住我的所作所为害了这么多的人。它鼓励我设法做一些力所能及的小事来补偿我的过失。”

    “我没办法把钱还给别人，也没办法为他们提供就业机会。我补偿不了。但我就是得设法一点一点地做些弥补。希望到这里来可以让我做的补救再多一些。”

    组织者曾担心法斯托的报告会被打断。而在回答了这个问题后，听众向这位安然前首席财务官报以经久不息的掌声。接下来的15分钟里，法斯托在诈骗审查师们中间四处走动并与人交谈。有几个人要求跟他合影，法斯托都礼貌地同意了。一名跟他合影的ACFE职员说她觉得要求合影有点儿怪，但法斯托看来很友善，让她觉得是“历史的一部分”。

    会议结束后，法斯托离开会场，准备乘飞机返回休斯顿。他拿到了一个手提袋，上面印着ACFE的标志。

    对此法斯托评价说：“实在是有点儿讽刺意味。”（财富中文网）

    本刊特约编辑彼得•艾尔金德和贝萨尼•麦克林共同撰写了《房间里最聪明的人：安然令人赞叹的崛起和不光彩地倒下》。

    译者：Charlie

    Among his questions, Fastow was asked about former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling's sentence reduction last month -- from 24 to 14 years. Fastow offered considerable sympathy for his former boss, against whom he had testified at trial. "Going to prison is terrible," Fastow said. "You're never comfortable. All the talk about 'Club Fed' is garbage ... You're surrounded by very violent people, very unstable people. Prisons work hard to make you uncomfortable. But that's not what's bad about going to prison. What's bad about going to prison is that you're separated from your family." (Skilling's parents and youngest son all died while he was behind bars.) Fastow added that even Skilling's reduced term is still "a devastating sentence."

    Fastow went on to insist that "Enron did not have to go bankrupt when it went bankrupt ... Enron should not have gone bankrupt. It could have survived. And it was decisions made in October 2001" -- after Skilling resigned as CEO -- "that caused it go into bankruptcy" early that December. That's a highly debatable point -- but Fastow did not elaborate.

    And then, the final question: "This is on a lot of people's minds. Many people vilify you for what you did at Enron, and the resulting effect on other companies, pensions, market share, people's fortunes. How do you grapple with that? How do you react to that condemnation?"

    "Um, well, first of all," said Fastow, looking down, "I deserve it. It's a very difficult thing to accept that about yourself. I didn't set out to commit a crime. I certainly didn't set out to hurt anyone. When I was working at Enron, you know, I was kind of a hero, because I helped the company make its numbers every quarter. And I thought I was doing a good thing. I thought I was smart. But I wasn't."

    "I wake up every morning, and I take out my prison ID card, which I have with me here today. And it makes certain that I remember all the people. I remember that I harmed so many people in what I did. It encourages me to try to do the little things that I can to make amends for what I did."

    "I can't repay everyone. I can't give them jobs. I can't fix it. But I just have to try bit by bit to do that. Being here is hopefully a little contribution to that."

    And with that -- despite the organizer's fears that Fastow's speech might be disrupted -- the former Enron CFO received a broad round of applause. For 15 minutes afterwards, he lingered, chatting with a crowd of the fraud examiners. More than one asked to pose for a photo with Fastow, who politely agreed. An ACFE staffer who did so said she felt a bit weird about the request, but that Fastow seemed nice and she felt he was "part of history."

    That over, the former Enron CFO departed for his flight back to Houston, carrying a tote bag he'd been given bearing the logo of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.

    "Quite a bit of irony in that," Fastow remarked.

    Fortune Editor at Large Peter Elkind is co-author, with Bethany McLean, of The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron.