Still in his mid-30s, Andrew Fastow was at the top his game in the late 1990s.
The former Enron Corp. chief financial officer was celebrated as one of Corporate America's savviest number guys. He was arrogant and wealthy beyond belief. He had two kids and a beautiful wife. The family was building its dream home in the lush River Oaks enclave of Houston.
Before being handcuffed and hauled off to jail yesterday, Mr. Fastow, now 44, fought back tears as he conceded that he's "ashamed to the core" for everything that's happened to him since.
A U.S. federal judge sentenced the mastermind of Enron's accounting alchemy to jail for six years, rejecting a plea deal that would have put Mr. Fastow behind bars for 10 years.
U.S. District Court Judge Kenneth Hoyt said Mr. Fastow deserved leniency for helping prosecutors and because his family has suffered greatly in the five years since Enron's 2001 collapse.
"The family has taken a particularly acrimonious hit," Judge Hoyt said at a sentencing hearing in Houston. "You got a double portion, and your wife shared in it. That calls for mercy."
The judge pointed out that Mr. Fastow has been persecuted and scapegoated for his role in the scandal. He also noted that his wife, Lea, went to jail for tax evasion as prosecutors tried to pressure Mr. Fastow.
The prosecutors wanted Mr. Fastow to testify against other top Enron executives.
The couple has two sons, aged 8 and 11.
Mr. Fastow's life has spiralled downward since he was celebrated on Wall Street as a financial wizard. At the time of Enron's spectacular collapse in December, 2001, Mr. Fastow was living the life of a multimillionaire and high-flying executive.
In October, 2002, he was indicted on 98 criminal charges, including fraud, money, laundering, insider trading and conspiracy.
Mr. Fastow eventually pleaded guilty to lesser charges, while agreeing to become the star witness in the trials of Enron's top two former executives - founder Kenneth Lay and chief executive officer Jeffrey Skilling.
Both men were convicted on dozens of charges, but Mr. Lay died of a massive heart attack on July 5. Mr. Skilling is still awaiting sentencing and could go to jail for 20 to 30 years.
"I wish I could undo what I did at Enron, but I can't," Mr. Fastow told the judge. "I am ashamed to the core. I am sorry for what I have done to other people and my family and community. I destroyed my life."
Driven by greed, Mr. Fastow acknowledged that he had "failed" his family and friends and would spend the rest of his life working to keep their trust.
"I will serve my sentence as part of my repentance that I've already begun," Mr. Fastow said, minutes before a U.S. marshal handcuffed him and led from the courtroom.
Mr. Fastow has undergone a transformation from a man in denial of what he did to someone desperate to make amends, explained lawyer John Keker, who has represented Mr. Fastow since 2002.
Mr. Keker portrayed Mr. Fastow as a victim, who was "dehumanized" in the media and became a target of hatred and anti-Semitism.
Assistant U.S. Attorney John Hueston praised Mr. Fastow for his role in securing convictions against Mr. Lay and Mr. Skilling. He said the plea deal was "a key breakthrough" that allowed him to become a "credible, contrite and truthful" witness.
During his four days on the stand earlier this year, Mr. Fastow linked Mr. Lay and Mr. Skilling to a scheme to inflate Enron's profits and hide its deteriorating financial condition from investors. Mr. Fastow told the court that Mr. Skilling ordered him to use a series of murky, off-the-books partnerships to "juice" profit and create the fiction of a thriving company.
Prosecutors charged 33 people and one company - former Enron auditor Arthur Andersen - in the case. Of those, nine were convicted, 16 pleaded guilty and six are awaiting trial.
Another two were acquitted, while Arthur Andersen's conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court
Mr. Fastow headed to jail on the same day as Alberta-born Bernard Ebbers, 65, checked in to a minimum security federal prison in Oakdale, La., to serve a 25-year sentence for heading an $11-billion (U.S.) fraud at WorldCom. Mr. Ebbers was convicted last year on nine counts of conspiracy, securities fraud and false regulatory filings.
The Enron and WorldCom collapses have come to symbolize the corporate excesses of the late 1990s, when dozens of companies used accounting tricks to inflate profits and prop up their share prices.
Lawrence Mitchell, a law professor at George Washington University and author of the book, Corporate Irresponsibility: America's Newest Export, said prosecutors clearly made an example of Mr. Ebbers and others.
But he said the sentences aren't "disproportionate" with the financial and human wreckage they've left behind.
"Chief executives have to recognize that that they hold a public trust and they can't defraud the public," he said.