WASHINGTON, DC (KNX) -- The woman who blew the whistle on the Enron scandal welcomed Thursday's guilty verdicts against company founder Kenneth Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling, saying that justice was long in coming.
"I wish it wouldn't have been so little so late,'' Watkins said on NBC's "Today'' program. ``I wish the company were still alive, but justice seems to have been done.''
The jury returned verdicts of guilty against Lay on all counts and against Skilling on 19 or 28 counts of fraud and conspiracy. The two could spend the rest of their lives behind bars.
Watkins was Enron's global vice president and it was she who sent an anonymous letter to Lay in 2001 expressing concerns about company accounting practices.
She met with Law sometime later to express those concerns in person and says he seemed to take her seriously. But that apparent concern didn't translate into effective action.
"He ended up using the same outside lawyers that had helped form these fraudulent structures to investigate them.''
Speaking about the verdicts, Watkins said, "It feels a long time in coming. Enron collapsed into bankruptcy in 2001 and here it's the spring of 2006.''
She added that she believes the verdicts were fair.
"I think leaders ... should bear not only the privilege of office but also the responsibility.''
Watkins was a witness at both the Congressional hearings and the federal trial.
"The federal trial was high pressure because I had two highly paid defense teams trying to make me look silly,'' she said. ``So it was more pressure even than Congress, but in the end truth prevailed.''
She also added that she thinks long prison terms are appropriate for her two former bosses.
"I do think longer prison terms are a deterrent. If it's just two to three years, that didn't seem to stop high-dollar white collar crime.''
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