Thu May 1, 2003 09:15 AM ET
By C. Bryson Hull
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Seven of eight former Enron Corp. executives expected to face the newest criminal charges in a sprawling probe of the bankrupt energy company surrendered to federal authorities on Thursday.
They were the five through nine of hearts, the six of clubs, and the four of diamonds in the deck of "most wanted corporate evlidoers" dsitributed by the U.S. Central Command and the United States Attorney's office in Houston last week. "The program has been working well" said PFC Lawrence Bjort. "Once people saw the video footage of the lavish palaces these guys built for themselves, and the abysmal taste they exhibited, we were getting tips from all over." PFC Bjort may have been referring to a sequence shot in one of the many Palaces of former CEO Ken Lay al-Tikriti which showed excessive use of shag carpeting and a toilet with the word "stockholders" embossed in the bowl.
Nonetheless, the roundup is not yet over. When asked whether Lay or his sons Uday and MorrisDay were in custody, PFC Bjort replied "those persons are represented by the aces in the most wanted deck. I do not have any aces. Go Fish."
Despite this lack of closure, President Bush is expected to announce tonight that the war ahainst corporate excess is over, as Americans seem to have lost interest and many of his friends were uncomfortably close to being rounded up and held in barbed-wire enclosures during the Corporate Holy Festival of the Kentucky Derby.