The Lays start collecting $900,000/year in 2007 according to this article. http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2002/02/enron_insure.html Something feels wrong with the article though -- 900K seems pretty rich on just 4M down to purcahse the annuity. If Bush pardons, he does 30 months or so and lives well.
Bush will be out of office in 2008. I hope Bush won't have a chance to do so. I hope Lay will be forced to give up this $900K/year benefit.
If creditors can establish the money used to purchase the annuity was fraudulently obtained, he may have to give it back. If you think Bush is going to pardon Ken Lay, you really don't know Bush. Ken Lay called the White House when the trouble started and they wouldn't even take his phone call. Lay is much closer to the ex-Pres than the current one. The current President does not like Lay. Just a little too smooth and silky for his taste. SteveD
'If you think Bush is going to pardon Ken Lay, you really don't know Bush.' After Iraq's mess, do you think Bush has any 'capital' left to pardon somebody who destroyed the savings of 10s of thousands of employees and chain reaction resulting in market correction hurting the whole investor community.
As of 2004, the Lays had several family members holding millions. Lay was smart enough to diversify a small retirement into annuities that probably can't be touched, and some people still think he didn't know what was going on? Absurd. Yes. But he won't.
Bush-Lay letters suggest close relationship Newly released documents suggest that President Bush's relationship with embattled former Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay was once chummy and that Lay often asked him to act on Enron's behalf when Bush was governor of Texas. Some two dozen letters written by Lay to then-Gov. Bush were among the 350 pages of Bush documents released Friday by Texas archivists in response to requests by news organizations and the nonprofit government watchdog group Public Citizen. The correspondence includes holiday greetings, birthday notes and get-well wishes. In one 1997 note, Bush teases Lay about his 55th birthday, adding "Laura and I value our friendship with you." --------- A site called the Smoking gun has a few of the letters released : Lay-Bush letters Give him credit for playing the Jesus card: "And, most of all I believe God, in fact, is in control and that, indeed God works all things good for all who love the lord. We love our lord, all this will work for good."