Kenneth Lay Dead at 64

The former CEO of Enron died today. TFM predicts it won't be long before someone out in the blogosphere says it wasn't natural causes.

I passed judgment on Lay a while back. He may have escaped justice on earth, but God in heaven isn't done with him yet. That will happen to all of us after we die. RIP.

Open Post- TMH's Bacon Bits, Third World County,

HOUSTON - Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay, who was convicted of helping perpetuate one of the most sprawling business frauds in U.S. history, has died of a heart attack in Colorado. He was 64.

A secretary at his church and another secretary for his lead criminal lawyer, Michael Ramsey, both confirmed the death. Lay, who lived in Houston, frequently vacationed in Colorado.

Lay, who faced life in prison, was scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 23.

Nicknamed "Kenny Boy" by President Bush, Lay led Enron's meteoric rise from a staid natural gas pipeline company formed by a 1985 merger to an energy and trading conglomerate that reached No. 7 on the Fortune 500 in 2000 and claimed $101 billion in annual revenues.

He was convicted May 25 along with former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling of defrauding investors and employees by repeatedly lying about Enron's financial strength in the months before the company plummeted into bankruptcy protection in December 2001. Lay was also convicted in a separate non-jury trial of bank fraud and making false statements to banks, charges related to his personal finances.

Lay had built Enron into a high-profile, widely admired company, the seventh-largest publicly traded in the country. But Enron collapsed after it was revealed the company's finances were based on a web of fraudulent partnerships and schemes, not the profits that it reported to investors and the public.