Enron's Ex-CEO Skilling on Hot Seat

Feb. 7 -- It's been an astonishing turn of events for Enron's former CEO, the 48-year-old Jeffrey Skilling.

Just a few months ago, no praise was too lavish, no goal too lofty, for the swashbuckling energy entrepreneur who sent Enron stock soaring — and then walked away with at least $69 million from sales of company shares.

But after the company's $60 billion implosion, the headlines are different for Skilling, who's been holed up in his multimillion-dollar Houston mansion since December, and who now is in Capitol Hill's sights as Congress presses hearings into the company's collapse.

Skilling blames Enron's collapse on an unfortunate series of events. But congressional investigators point out he was at the energy company's helm at the time during this "perfect storm."

"You still have to sail the boat into the wrong place very assiduously to get it caught in this kind of a storm," said Rep. James Greenwood, R-Pa., chairman of a House subcommittee investigating the firm.

Congressional investigators want to know about Skilling's knowledge of Enron's secret partnerships, which eventually sank the company. New documents show Skilling did not put his signature on the deals, even though he was urged to do so by a company lawyer. Some say Skilling did not want his fingerprints on the deals, some of which may have been illegal.

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"We know that a lot of people who were in high places in Enron knew that the books were cooked," charged Greenwood, "and we know that it is illegal to cook the books."

Brilliant … and Obsessed, Say Those Who Know Him

You hear two things when you ask friends and colleagues about Jeff Skilling. He's brilliant — and obsessed with the markets. A budding entrepreneur in high school in Auora, Ill. — he worked for a start-up TV station — by the time he reached Harvard Business School his market mentality made him a standout.

"Jeff was possessed with a genuine, passionate, dogmatic zeal about what free markets can do in the energy world," recalled Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of the Yale School of Management.