Aspen – Ken Lay, the former Enron chairman and chief executive who became the face of corporate corruption after the energy firm’s spectacular collapse, looked so run down at dinner Monday that fellow diner Jennifer Alter pitied him.
“I said to my husband … ‘He looks terrible,”‘ said Alter, of Basalt, who ate at an adjacent table at the Bella Mia Restaurant in El Jebel, west of Aspen. “I actually felt really sad. I just felt sorry for him.”
Lay, 64, died early Wednesday after suffering what a family spokeswoman said was a heart attack while staying at a rented vacation home in Old Snowmass Village. He was awaiting sentencing on federal fraud and conspiracy convictions.
Pitkin County sheriff’s deputies were called to the home about 1 a.m. Lay was rushed to Aspen Valley Hospital and pronounced dead at 3:11 a.m.
Mesa County Coroner Robert Kurtzman said an autopsy showed that Lay, a Houston resident who at one time owned a few homes in Aspen, died of coronary-artery disease. Toxicology results are pending. The autopsy was done in Mesa County, authorities there said, because Pitkin County did not have a forensic pathologist on staff.
Lay kept a low profile in Aspen – especially since his May 25 conviction for fraud and conspiracy – but still was seen occasionally around the Roaring Fork Valley, hobnobbing with celebrities and business titans in such places as the Woody Creek Tavern, the famous hangout of late writer Hunter S. Thompson.
As Lay’s legal problems worsened, a tavern regular facetiously placed a jar for his “defense fund” on the counter, which collected contributions such as a condom, nuts, a peso, a firearm cartridge, even a noose.
Two summers ago, Lay retrieved it.
“He came in one morning before we opened and asked for it,” said waitress DiAnne Redfern.
Recently, Lay dined at the tavern with his wife, children and grandchildren and “seemed very family-oriented, and he seemed very into his grandkids,” she said.
Asked if he came across as Joe Average, she replied: “A rich Joe Average. You could tell he wasn’t hurting.”
Lay and his family had contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies, the Anderson Ranch Arts Center and the Aspen Music Festival.
Lay had sold several properties he owned in Aspen and was staying in a home rented from family friend I.V. Pabst, who also lives on the property.
Modest by Aspen standards, the 2,866-square-foot home sits on 37.6 acres and is valued at $431,500 by the Pitkin County tax assessor.
“Ken Lay was not who he was portrayed to be. He was a very kind, sweet, decent, gentle soul,” Pabst said. “I’ll never know what the truth was about Enron, but I know the truth about that man.”
Lay spokeswoman Kelly Kimberly said in a statement that Lay and his wife, Linda, had arrived in Snowmass on Monday.
She said a memorial service will be held at First United Methodist Church in Houston, but no date has been set.
Lay was scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 23, along with his protégé Jeff Skilling, Enron’s former chief executive, who was convicted on 18 counts of fraud and conspiracy and one insider- trading count.
Unlike Skilling, Lay had not yet filed an appeal.
Lay was convicted after a widespread fraud investigation that enveloped Enron’s finance, trading, broadband and retail-energy units. The probe amassed 16 guilty pleas from former executives, eight of whom testified against Skilling and Lay.
Lay and Skilling insisted no fraud had occurred at Enron except for a few employees who skimmed money behind their backs. Jurors were unconvinced.
They found Lay guilty on six counts of fraud and conspiracy. He faced a sentence of five to 10 years on each count.
Enron filed for bankruptcy in 2001, costing thousands of Enron employees their jobs and pensions and leaving shareholders with worthless stock.
Lay also was convicted in a separate federal trial of bank fraud and making false statements to banks. Those charges related to his personal finances.
Before his dramatic fall, Lay was a prominent civic leader in Houston, where Enron was headquartered, a multimillionaire who was active in numerous charities and political campaigns.
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 list in 2000 and claimed $101 billion in annual revenues.
As a youth in Missouri, Lay delivered newspapers, mowed grass, baled hay and said he daydreamed of becoming rich. After earning a master’s at the University of Missouri in 1965, Lay became a senior economist at Humble Oil and Refining Co. – later to be known as Exxon – and grew close to the company’s president, who asked him to write his speeches.
Lay served in the Navy and worked for the Federal Power Commission. In 1973, he took a position at pipeline company Florida Gas. In 1981, he became second in command at another pipeline company, Transco Energy, in Houston.
In June 1984, Lay became chairman and CEO of a smaller rival, Houston Natural Gas. The next year, InterNorth of Omaha bought Houston Natural Gas for $2.4 billion, creating the biggest U.S. natural gas-pipeline system. The company was renamed Enron, and Lay was named its head.
President Bush called him “Kenny Boy” and appointed Lay to his White House transition team before Lay’s house of cards collapsed in 2001.
Skilling had no comment on Lay’s death. But his lawyer, Daniel Petrocelli, described Skilling as “devastated.”
John Olson, an analyst who angered Lay with his skeptical takes on Enron’s often indecipherable financial reports, lamented Lay’s death Wednesday.
“It’s a very sad ending for the whole Lay family saga,” Olson said. “There are very few people of his age and abilities who flew as high or who fell so low.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Staff writer Joey Bunch can be reached at 303-820-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com.
Staff writer Steve Lipsher can be reached at 970-513-9495 or slipsher@denverpost.com.
Ken Lay
Age: 64; born April 15, 1942, in Tyrone, Mo.
Family: Wife, Linda; son, Mark; daughter, Elizabeth; stepdaughter, Robyn.
Education: Bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics from University of Missouri; doctorate in economics from University of Houston.
Career: Senior economist at Humble Oil and Refining Co. in Houston; after earning his doctorate, Lay was an economist in the Navy and, in 1971, became undersecretary of energy under Rogers Morton; left government in 1974 to be an executive of Florida Gas, becoming president of the company by 1981; returned to Houston in 1982 to run Transco Energy Co., and in 1984 took the helm of Houston Natural Gas; 1985, HNG merged with Omaha-based InterNorth, and the combined company became Enron with Lay as CEO; Enron reached No. 7 on the Fortune 500 in 2000 and claimed $101 billion in annual revenues.
Enron fallout: Stepped down as Enron’s CEO in January 2002 and quit as chairman the next month; Lay was convicted with former chief executive Jeff Skilling on May 25 of fraud and conspiracy. He also was convicted the same day in a separate trial of bank fraud and making false statements to banks in a case related to his personal finances.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Former properties
After selling four properties in the Aspen area for $21.8 million, former Enron founder and chairman Ken Lay and his wife, Linda, had been renting and residing part time in a home on a ranch in Old Snowmass, northwest of Aspen. The Pitkin County properties sold by the Lays between February 2002 and July 2003, according to county assessor records:
Feb. 1, 2002: 20,266-square-foot vacant lot on Miner Trail Road, $2.15 million
Feb. 7, 2002: 4,712-square-foot, six-bedroom house on 3.25 acres at 165 Shady Lane, $10 million
March 26, 2003: 4,537-square- foot, four-bedroom house at 270 N. Spring St., $4.53 million
July 30, 2003: 4,559-square-foot, four-bedroom house at 285 N. Spring St for $5.16 million
