Andrew Fastow was the Enron CFO convicted of conspiracy and fraud in the company’s accounting scandal.
Fastow served as Enron’s chief financial officer from 1998 until 2002. Prosecutors said he used special-purpose entities, including LJM partnerships, to hide debt and inflate the energy trader’s reported financial position. These arrangements became central to the scandal that brought down Enron in late 2001.
In January 2004, Fastow pleaded guilty to conspiracy, fraud, and other charges. He agreed to cooperate with federal investigators and testified against former Enron executives Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay. In September 2006, a federal judge sentenced him to six years in prison.
A common mix-up is confusing Fastow with Skilling or Lay. Fastow was the finance executive who designed and managed many of the controversial transactions; Skilling was the former CEO, while Lay was Enron’s chairman and founder.