After Lay's death, Enron's victims contemplate justice

He was a man, after all — not just some abstract symbol of corporate thievery and vanished investor billions.

Kenneth Lay, founder of Enron, was a grandfather to 12, a husband to the woman who sobbed at his side on the day of his conviction.

And yet his sudden death early Wednesday in Colorado, at age 64, came before he had served a single day of what was likely to be a decades-long prison term for his role in the Enron fraud.

The timing of the death raised intriguing questions of justice and retribution denied — not least, of course, for the thousands of victims of Enron, many of whom had said they were eager to see him live out his remaining years behind bars.

Some observers who admittedly reviled Lay said the death — his pastor said Lay's heart "simply gave out" — simply shifted the administration of justice from human hands to those of a higher power.

"I hate this happened. I personally wanted to see him go to jail. But maybe this is God's way of having justice done," said Charles Prestwood, a former pipeline operator who retired from Enron in 2000 and later lost $1.3 million in retirement savings.

Prestwood said he would not wish death on anyone, but others were less sympathetic. Prestwood, in fact, said he had heard discussions among former Enron workers about throwing parties.

On Internet blogs, discussion ranged from expressions of sympathy for Lay's family to outright rage that he died without ever beginning a prison term. Lay was to be sentenced in October.

Discussions of life, death, vengeance and debts to society are age-old, of course, and scholars from both legal and spiritual backgrounds stressed there were no easy answers to the questions raised by Lay's death.

David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, said believers may think of the death as "divine retribution" — and that even nonbelievers looking for some solace can know that Lay, even before he was sentenced, "was brought down several notches from where he started."

"He knew in his lifetime that Enron collapsed on his watch, that he was held responsible," Harris said, "and I'm sure that brought him face to face with reality in a way that he may never have expected."

From a legal standpoint, Enron prosecutors had already suggested the convictions of Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling, who still faces sentencing this fall, sent a powerful message to corporate executives who may be inclined to commit crimes.

"You can't lie to shareholders; you can't put yourselves in front of your employees' interests," Prosecutor Sean Berkowitz said after the May 25 verdict. Prosecutors declined to comment on Lay's death.

Still, Sherri Saunders, who worked for Enron and its predecessor company for 24 years before she was laid off in 2001, insisted Wednesday that Lay "got off easy."

"To those of us who lost everything, we still have to struggle every day," said Saunders, who saw $1 million in retirement savings disappear. She said she had taken comfort in knowing "if he was going to die, he was going to die in prison."