Wall Street's fallen idol accused of plundering the 'Kansas Enron'

[emad]

The Times
From James Doran, Wall Street Correspondent

DAVID WITTIG, the poster boy for the 1980s’ Greed is Good era on Wall Street, faces decades in jail if he is found guilty of looting more than $28 million (£15 million) from Westar Energy, an electricity firm dubbed the Enron of Kansas.

Mr Wittig, who appeared on the cover of Fortune magazine holding a cigar and a fistful of dollars and boasting about the size of his salary as a 31-year-old investment banker, yesterday appeared in court in Kansas charged with 40 counts of fraud and conspiracy.
Douglas Lake, 54, the deputy chief executive of the company, has also been charged.

Although locals call Westar the Enron of Kansas, the case has more in common with the fraud trial under way at Tyco, whose chief executive Dennis Kozlowski is charged with looting $600 million.

Mr Wittig, 49, is accused, among other things, of spending $6.5 million renovating his office — fittings included a $29,000 television cabinet — at the same time as he sacked hundreds of employees to save money.
More:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,172-1306811,00.html

[ClintonTyree]

1. Capitalism at it's finest..............

this is the Conservative's wet dream. Steal people's money, lavish a decadent lifestyle upon yourself, and have no pangs of conscience in the process. I got mine, you get yours.
I always thought of Socialsim as a bad idea, that Capitalism even with all of it's flaws, was the way to go. As I look around the world now, I see that all of the Countries that have adopted a more Socialist way of life are far happier than we Americans. Our credo has become, "more, more, more, for me, me, me" Screw it, maybe I'll move to Denmark.

[KlatooBNikto]

4. I came back from a trip to Sweden last summer and was so

happy to be with people with whom one could converse about important things and not have to be thumping one's chest about being somebody, I have enrolled two of my children in Swedish Colleges.The bonus is the education, first rate, is thousands of dollars cheaper than our bloated colleges where socializing has become more important than real knowledge.My kids are thrilled and so is their mom.

[reprobate]

5. DG, welcome to the land of the enlightened.

Having been born into a republican family, it was JFK who convinced me that the dems were the honorable ones. And it was this criminal administration that showed me that unrestricted capitalism is as bad as, and I think will lead to totalitarianism.

An intelligent america would opt for a social democracy like the scandinavians, but with a media controlled and owned by the capitalist criminal conspiracy in power that won't happen.

I'v long said that living with corporations is like swimming with sharks: You want to keep and eye on them, and you want to be able to kill them when they turn on you and attack.

[shoelace414]

2. I blame Gordon Gecko

[ClassWarrior]

3. Ironic. Just got done reading "What's The Matter With Kansas."

Wittig is one of the things the matter with Kansas, as author Thomas Frank points out. Good to see that the economic elites are "getting theirs," to paraphrase another poster on this thread.

24.

[saigon68]

6. THE DIRTY BASTARD HIMSELF

http://cjonline.com/webindepth/westernresources/stories/062201.shtml

Business missteps and public relations blunders led to Western Resources chairman David Wittig's fall from grace and problems for the company, an article in the new edition of Forbes magazine contends.

A spokeswoman for Wittig didn't challenge the accuracy of the article but questioned its tone and conclusions.

The article, which appears in the July 9 edition of the bimonthly business magazine, says that when Wittig, 45, was enticed back to his native Kansas to work for Western after a successful career on Wall Street, he was viewed "as something of a conquering hero."

But since his arrival in 1995, the article says Wittig's image has been tarnished by a failed merger, an unprofitable foray into the home security business and his $8 million dollar salary at a time when the company's stock was in steep decline

[Zorra]

7. A blast from the past

Democrats, Group Seek Probe of GOP, Westar
By Thomas B. Edsall and Juliet Eilperin Washington Post Staff Writers June 7, 2003

Prominent Democrats and a consumer advocacy organization yesterday called on the Justice Department to investigate $56,500 in campaign contributions by a Kansas-based energy company that had sought a "seat at the table" as key Republicans worked out details of the Bush administration's energy bill.

The money went to political groups associated with GOP leaders, including Rep. Joe Barton (Tex.), who inserted a provision to exempt the company, Westar Energy Inc., from a troublesome federal regulation, and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Tex.) The provision was later withdrawn after Westar became the subject of a federal investigation of the company's practices. In e-mails, company officials had written of a plan "for participation" in the legislation and had said that Barton and other GOP lawmakers had requested the contributions.

"These allegations should be fully investigated. If DeLay and other members of Congress did agree to sell political access, they should be prosecuted for violating bribery laws," said former Vermont governor Howard Dean, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination.

"It is a serious federal crime for anyone to promise any public benefit 'provided for or made possible in a whole or in part by any act of Congress as consideration for any political activity or for the support of any candidate,' " Democratic Party Chairman Terence McAuliffe said yesterday in a letter to Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, requesting an investigation.

http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:3RlhR2i5mlgJ:bell.house.gov/NR/rdonlyres/625DBC29-EE8D-468B-9493-BD74B767E5B6/0/WPDemocratsGroupseekprobeofGOPWestar.pdf+david+wittig+republican&hl=en