Ikea just isn’t what it used to be, you know? Once a cool, hip, Swedey design company, it’s basically devolved into just a run of the mill furniture store whose difficulty to get to is rivaled only by the fact that it charges over a hundred dollars to deliver something worth less than forty, playing on the fact that some of us out there can’t fathom carrying a table up five flights of steps. But there’s hope yet! Saving Animals Across Borders is auctioning off the desks of former Enron employees Ken Lay, Jeffrey Skilling and Richard Kinder! Each one has a minimum bid of $25,000 and is made with “an elegant Makore Pommelle veneer,” to say nothing of the vintage edition copies of “Heart of Darkness” and “How To Win Friends and Influence People” (for those saracstic afternoons) in each top drawer. Personally, we’re saving our money for the shredder auction, but you should feel free to bid on these pieces of history today—you've got ‘til Sunday!

Ken Lay's desk goes up for grabs [CNN Money]

We guess this makes it official. Today we checked in with both of our favorite Ken Lay Lives conspiracy sites—and neither of them have been updated in ages. KenLayLives.blogspot.com sports a post dating back to July. And plain-old KenLayLives.com is now just blogspam.

So Ken Lay Lives is officially over. Ken Lay is dead. And his ghost has seen his conviction vacated.
Rest in peace.

As expected, a federal judge voided Ken Lay’s conviction yesterday. The founder of failed energy trading outfit Enron had been convicted by a Texas jury of conspiracy and fraud for his role in the 2001 collapse of the company six weeks before his death. The judge in the case ruled yesterday that because Lay died before having a chance to file for appeal, the conviction had to be set aside.

Of course the real deal here isn’t about freeing Ken Lay’s ghost from the calumny of criminal conviction. The public perception of his role as a villain in one of the biggest corporate scandals ever will likely survive any legal technicalities. Like so much else, this is really about money. You see, the decision will make it far more difficult for the government to order the forfeiture of the $43.5 that prosecutors say he pilfered from Enron.

Which isn’t the say that Ken Lay’s heirs can rest assured that Lay’s fortune will be theirs to keep. Civil suits will proceed apace, and often these do not require the presence of a defendant in the way a criminal trial does. Yes. You read that right. You and your estate can be sued even once you’ve taken shelter in the grave. We’ll leave the legal technicalities to the specialists over at AboveTheLaw, though.

Later today we’ll check in with the various Ken Lay Lives factions to see how the “living Ken Lay” is reacting to news that his alleged alleged death has vacated his conviction.

Judge vacates Ken Lay's Enron conviction [Houston Chronicle]

Ken Lay’s soul moved a bit further up the ladder of legal purgatory yesterday when a judge approved a motion by the lawyer expected to represent him in his appeals. Attorney Samuel Buffone had asked the court to substitute Ken Lay’s estate for the man himself, the first step in having the jury verdict against Lay for his role in the collapse of Enron vacated. Since Lay died before sentencing, his verdict was never considered final and legal precedent suggests it may now be vacated. Apparently, you cannot issue a final verdict against a dead man, so Lay moves one step closer to the paradise of technical innocence.

Of course, the perfect timing of Lay’s death has sparked rumors that Lay faked his death or brought it about intentionally. If the verdict is vacated, it will make it more difficult for prosecutors to confiscate his assets. This may mean Lay’s heirs will be able to enjoy the gains from the activities for which the jury convicted him.

Ruling lets lawyers move on effort to clear Lay [Houston Chronicle]

It seems it’s not just DealBreaker’s Bess Levin who is convinced Ken Lay lives. The analysts Long and Short Capital today gave the theory it’s official rating.

So if you are convicted of the largest financial fraud in history, but die in between conviction and sentencing, the conviction will be vacated by the Gov? And your assets are now fully unemcumbered by any legal claim? So Ken Lay died at the time at which it could confer maximum possible benefit to his name and to his family? I won’t even ask what happens if he turns up on a golf course in his Tommy Bahamas shirt in 2 years because double indeminity will prevent him from being charged again, a free man with millions holed away around the world…

Recommendation: Even more Alive!

Even the dead have laywers, at least if they were very rich. Attorneys for allegedly dead Ken Lay began the process of expunging his criminal record, according to the people who accord these sort of things.

Let’s take the Law Blog, for instance:

Samuel Buffone of Ropes & Gray in Washington, D.C., whom Lay had retained to represent him on appeal, filed a motion asking Judge Sim Lake to substitute Lay’s estate for the late defendant so he could appear in court on Lay’s behalf.

The motion stated that once the court recognizes him as the attorney for the estate, he will “move to vacate the convictions of Mr. Lay and dismiss the indictment.”

Lay died on July 5, in Aspen, Colo., of heart disease just weeks after his conviction on conspiracy and fraud charges. Because a final judgment wasn’t issued — he had not yet been sentenced or gone through the appeals process — Judge Lake is widely expected to toss both the verdict and indictment, wiping out Lay’s criminal record.

Inquiring minds want to know—why would dead Ken Lay care about whether he went to the next word with a criminal record? There’s a boring answer: it may prevent prosecutors from confiscating Lay’s assets from his heirs, blah, blah, blah. And then there is the batshit-crazy conspiracy answer (preferred by the likes of DealBreaker’s Bess Levin): because Ken Lay is alive and well and living in a chalet somewhere and he wants to keep his stuff out of the hands of the government that let him and God down by convicting him.

The Legal Process to Vacate Lay’s Conviction Begins [WSJ's Law Blog]

The "Ken Lay" who blogs over at KenLayLives.blogspot.com is none too happy with the t-shirt selling site KenLayLives.com.

Some bastards registered a domain name ripping off the clever, catchy name of my blog. What's more is they are selling t-shirts to profiteer off of my tragedy. Can you imagine somebody viciously making buckets of money at the expense of others? I cannot. Oh, the humanity! But remember, this is the world's only "official" website giving you updates of my life in exile. Those sycophants at www.kenlaylives.com will NEVER receive my endorsement or help.

Update: KenLayLives.com seems to have died. Or maybe exceeded its bandwidth limits. In any case, rumors are already circulating that KenLayLives.com hasn't actually died. It's just in hiding somewhere.

Ken Lay Lives!!! [kenlaylives.blogspot.com]

Despite the autopsy, Ken Lay was recently spotted in a New York area airport.

Don't check the casket. I know he's back. When I saw those lights flickering out at La Guardia Airport yesterday and heard the eerie shrieks and moans in the dark, broiling subway tunnels, I just knew it: Ken Lay's alive! We can see his spirit in every flickering lightbulb from Kansas to Queens as we head into America's annual Blackout season.

So they cut up the corpse of ex-Enron CEO Ken Lay and discovered that he had serious cardiovascular problems. Two stents were propping open his arteries, three of which were 90 percent blocked anyway.

The most interesting part of the story is the little details about Lay’s last moments.

The report said that Lay had awoken at about 1 a.m. on July 5 at the rented vacation home in Old Snowmass, Colorado, and spoke to his wife, Linda, before going into the bathroom. He was found dead on the bathroom floor.

Editor's Note: Since Ken Lay's death (or should we say "death"), we've been getting a lot of email from people suggesting he faked his own demise and then perhaps smuggled himself out of the country. As it turns out, you were right, TinFoilHat666@gmail.com! Intern Bess Levin recently received the missive below from Mr. Lay detailing his whereabouts since his supposed death. Ahem. "Death". (Any resemblance between Mr. Lay and a Jim Cramer bobblehead doll is entirely coincidental.)

So.

Well.

By now everyone has heard the theory that Ken Lay’s death might technically mean that Lay went to his grave an innocent man. Even though he had been convicted, since Lay died prior to sentencing and with possible appeals still available, his verdict was not final, the theory goes. But the latest idea is that Lay’s death not only lifts the guilty verdict from Lay himself, but from his co-defendant Jeffrey Skilling.

The Globe and Mail is reporting that:

Mr. Skilling's legal team will almost certainly invoke Mr. Lay's demise to try to reverse his own fraud and conspiracy conviction or demand a retrial, legal experts said yesterday.

That's because Mr. Lay's death Wednesday of an apparent heart attack effectively voids the entire case against the Enron founder, including the guilty verdict. Mr. Skilling, the former Enron chief executive officer who is appealing his own conviction, could now argue that much of the evidence against him stems from a case that no longer exists, argued lawyer Jacob Frenkel, a former federal prosecutor and white collar crime specialist.

So Ken Lay’s death frees Jeffrey Skilling from paying the price for his crimes? Maybe there is something to the Christ analogy after all.

Lay's death could set Skilling free [Globe and Mail]

We were a little put off when we first heard that Rev. William A. Lawson, the pastor emeritus of Houston's Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church who officiated at yesterday’s memorial service for Ken Lay, had said that the service was being held in Aspen rather than Houston, where Lay had lived for years and made his fortune building up Enron, because Houston “broke his heart.”

The man died of a massive heart attack. Saying Houston "broke his heart" comes kind of close to saying Houston killed Lay. But that cannot be what he meant, right? He’s not really saying Houston should feel guilty for what it did to Lay rather than the other way around.

Oh yes he is.

“I plan to tell them this is not the first time somebody good has been falsely accused and even crucified,'' Lawson said today in an interview before leaving for Aspen.

“Just like Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy, my hope is that people will view Ken Lay in a much more positive light after his death. Even though people say he's a robber and a crook and that it's a good thing he's dead, we have the right to tell his family we've seen this (vilification) before, and history can be kind.''

That’s right. Lay is Jesus, Martin Luther King and JFK all wrapped up into one. And we’re all Roman executioners, racist assassins and stooges-of-a-CIA-Cuban-Mafia conspiracy. That sound you hear is the sudden evacuation from our hearts of whatever contrarian sympathy we had for Lay.

Lay to Be Buried in Colorado After Houston `Broke His Heart' [Bloomberg]

Even dead Ken Lay is stilling messing with us—asking to be cremated so that he will live forever in the minds of conspiracy theorists who will surely declare that this is just a way of covering up for the lack of a body to bury. You can bet we'll be reading about Lay spottings on the cover of supermarket tabloids for the next twenty years.

Really you have to hand it to Lay. He’s discovered a path into immortality. Too bad he had to die to do it.

Oh, by the way. If you’ve seen Ken Lay lately you might want to check out Ken Lay is Alive and Well, a new website devoted to Lay-spotting.

History repeats itself. First as tragedy. Then as comedy (or, in this case, a blog). And finally as an ironic t-shirt.

The Ken Lay Lives T-Shirt [KenLayLives.Com]

Here's why you think this is far-fetched. If you were convicted of crimes that would probably get you locked up for the rest of your life, you probably wouldn't be able to escape. But then you probably also wouldn't be spending the time between conviction and sentencing in your Aspen vacation home either.

But just because you lack imagination doesn't mean it can't be done. Escape is possible. People have done it. We even explained how Ken Lay might get away.

Scott Adams of Dilbert fame has his own theory about what really happened to Ken Lay.

My theory is that Ken – if that’s his real first name – named himself after a bag of chips, scammed his way up the corporate ladder, stole a few hundred million dollars, faked his death and sailed to Aruba where dead people are rarely found.

So it is possible that stress related to his trial and conviction brought on Ken Lay’s heart attack?

Slate says:

Absolutely. The release of stress hormones (like adrenalin) into the bloodstream increases the likelihood of both heart attack and sudden cardiac arrest. Studies of heart attack patients found that 15 percent to 30 percent of those admitted to a medical center had suffered from severe emotional stress.

This Fox News story, however, suggests that Lay’s condition doesn’t fit the usual pattern of stress induced heart attacks.

Did Stress Kill Ken Lay? [Slate]

Ken Lay's Heart Attack: A Case of Death By Stress? [FoxNews.Com]

That's the title of a new blog launched earlier today by, uhm, Ken Lay. Or, we should say, "Ken Lay." KenLayLives claims Ken has fled to an undisclosed location where he is gathering evidence to prove his innocence. Also, he reminds us that "Texas Rules!" DealBreaker cannot vouch for the factuality of any of these claims.

Well let's hear from the not-dead-yet "Ken" himself:

As the reports circulate about my death today, I am already at an undisclosed location on another part of our planet (some of my powerful friends are good at securing such locations). I have already taken out hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Swiss bank accounts made up of my fortune that cannot be touched by pesky litigation.

So, rest assured: Kenny Boy lives! And I promise you that I am and will continue to live well. In my free time, I will continue to post on here to tell you about my mission to prove my innocence. When I finally secure the evidence to do so, I will (much like Jesus) return.

Lastly, a quick shout-out to my friends who helped me out of that minor jam I was in (I am using affectionate nicknames to protect their identity for now): 41, 43, and Chainy. You're the best buddies this cowboy could ever ask for!

Remember. It's still not too late to print up a Ken Lay trading card.

I faked my death! [KenLayLives]

Ken Lay, the convicted Enron founder, has died of a massive heart attack, according to KHOU-TV, a Houston CBS affiliate. Lay was found guilty in May of fraud and conspiracy for his role in the collapse of the company he built out of a merger between Houston Natural Gas, where he had previously been CEO, and Nebraska's InterNorth. He was awaiting sentencing and considering possible appeals at his vacation home in Aspen, Colorado. Lay was 64.

No word on whether prosecutors will seek to use new war-on-terror extradition powers to force the guardians of the afterlife to release Lay's ghost for sentencing in Houston.

Ken Lay dead of massive heart attack
[KHOU-TV]

It has been brought to our attention that sometimes we write about people you don't know who do things you don't understand for reasons no one can explain. Normally, we'd just point you to Google and send you on your way, but we're not sure we can trust you to do your own homework. (You didn't do it in college, so why would you start now?) In light of that, we're now publishing DealBreaker Trading Cards™. We're starting with the basic, obvious people and working our way up (or down, as it were) to the more obscure, not-terribly important people who still make way more money than your average obscure, not-terribly important people. This week: our White Collar Criminals Series. First up: Ken Lay.

Ken Lay took the stand today and offered the following assessment of the Enron trial, so far:

It's been very interesting,'' Mr. Lay answered. "We've seen a lot of interesting testimony. We've seen a lot of interesting people, a lot of allegations, a lot of lies, a lot of misinformation and some truth."

Mr. Lay has been in court every day since the trial began Jan. 31, seated in a swivel chair in the same spot, flanked by a legal team that includes his daughter. He takes notes while listening to testimony, appears attentive but relaxed, and smiles or even chuckles during lighter moments.

Kenneth Lay Takes the Stand at Enron Trial in Houston [WSJ]