Enron And The Watergate Of The Vietnam War - 1460 Words

In October of 2001, Enron announced a third-quarter loss of $618 million. The SEC and the U.S. Department of Justice both launched investigations into the sudden fall of the company and found that Enron had overstated their earnings by an estimated $586 million since 1997. Top executives in the company sold their majority shares days before the company’s collapse leaving lower level employees with worthless stocks in their pensions causing them to lose the majority of their life savings (CNN). As of today, charges have been brought against at least sixteen employees and executives in connection with Enron on counts of wire fraud, securities fraud, insider trading and money laundering among others. Flashback to June 17, 1972, and the†¦show more content†¦On June 17, 1972, an arrest was made of five burglars discovered trying to conduct a break-in at the Watergate; one of whom was James W. McCord, the security director for the Committee for the Re-election of the Presid ent (watergateinfo). The initial burglary does not strike one as a white collar offense but what happens after the burglary is why many consider the Watergate Scandal to be white collar. In August of 1972, a $25,000 check earmarked for the Nixon campaign found itself in the bank account of a Watergate burglar. Nixon claimed that the White House had conducted an investigation into the matter and that no one from the White House had been involved. In November of 1972, Richard Nixon was reelected as president. January of 1973 began the trial of the Watergate Seven. Five plead guilty to their charges; the other two plead not guilty but are convicted on counts of conspiracy, burglary, and wiretapping. In March of ’73 accusations are brought against John Dean and John Mitchell for obstruction of justice on the grounds of the men pressuring the burglars to plead guilty and that others were involved in the Watergate break-in (watergateinfo). President Nixon denied ever knowing about the Watergate break-in or the attempts to cover it up. In June, the Washington Post reported that John Dean told Watergate investigators that he had spoken with President Nixon about the