I guess you didn't read the article.

"Former Enron Corp. chief financial officer Andrew Fastow was indicted Thursday on 78 federal counts alleging he masterminded a scheme to artificially inflate the energy company's profits.



The indictment, returned by a grand jury in Houston and released in Washington by the Justice Department (news - web sites), is essentially a formal restatement of a criminal complaint brought earlier this month.

But the indictment is notable for the sheer number of charges, which include fraud, money laundering and conspiracy. If convicted, Fastow faces hundreds of years in jail and millions of dollars in fines."



If you think 78 federal counts with the possibility of hundreds of years in prison and millions in fines is a pat on the head, I can't help but wonder what you think the charges would've been they thrown the book at him. Perhaps you need to think about this little part of the article:

"Fastow is the most prominent Enron figure targeted so far by the Justice Department. Prosecutors are expected to pressure him to find out what he might say about his former colleagues, including former Enron chairman Kenneth Lay and former chief executive Jeffrey Skilling.



Fastow's attorneys have said his work had the full approval of top Enron executives and that Fastow did not believe he committed any crimes."



and this:

"Prosecutors in August won a guilty plea from Fastow's once-trusted lieutenant, Michael Kopper, who provided much of the information on the partnerships used by prosecutors to build their case against Fastow. Kopper pleaded guilty to money laundering and wire fraud and faces up to 15 years in prison at his scheduled April 4 sentencing."

The prosecuters used Kopper to get charges against Fastow. They're going to attempt to use Fastow to get charges against the others. Sounds like a pretty rigorous prosecution to me.

Of course, someone has to find a way to blame Bush for all of this, I'm sure. Funny little tidbit in the article:

"Federal prosecutors say that beginning in 1997, Fastow created a series of complex "special purpose entities" that kept poorly performing assets off Enron's balance sheets and falsely manufactured earnings, making the energy trading giant appear more financially sound than it truly was."

Gee, if a president is somehow responsible for everything that happens in the country (as some people seem to believe), perhaps we should ask who was president in 1997 when all of this started?