After a delay of nearly two months, former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow is going to prison in the federal correctional system. The purpose of the delay was to allow him to give a deposition in the securities fraud class action against the company's banks. Fastow testified for eight and a half days in Houston, before being dispatched on the BOP bus to Oakdale, taking daily trips with U.S. Marshals to a facility where seventy lawyers listened to him, along with live internet broadcasting.

Fastow is currently being held in the Federal Detention Center in Oakdale, Louisiana. U.S. District Judge Hoyt recommended during sentencing that the Bureau of Prisons place Fastow at the minimum security facility at Bastrop, Texas, near Austin. However, judges have no control over what the BOP decides on assignments. The Oakdale complex includes a minimum security facility (the Oakdale FCI), where former WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers is serving a 25-year sentence. Fastow is currently in the FDC which also includes a prison camp.

A New York Times story estimates that at $450 per hour, all those lawyers billed about $2.1 million. That figure does not include the costs of support personnel and firm associates in addition to the costs of daily transcripts and duplication. If the securities fraud case goes to trial, then Fastow may have to take a few more trips to Houston to testify - again.

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Sheryl Jones
Staff Writer