Documents released last week as part of ongoing probe into Enron Corp. portrayed former Chairman Kenneth L. Lay as an absent executive who seemed to be always just returning from trips, had his eye on leaving the energy trading giant that he guided to the top, had precious little first-hand knowledge of the financial details of the company, and accepted at face value the judgments and decisions of his right-hand men.

Lay even conceded that he didn’t know and “would not recognize” the Enron employee, who pocketed around $10 million as a result of his direct investment in the Chewco partnership. He said he first learned of Michael Kopper, Enron’s managing director of Global Finance, through a Wall Street Journal article last October.

Until then, Lay said he thought the “only related-party transaction” that Enron was involved in was LJM. Ex-CFO Andrew Fastow both managed and invested in LJM, and walked away at least $30 million wealthier — an amount that Lay said “shocked” him. Lay’s claim of ignorance of the day-to-day activities at Enron, or the so-called ostrich defense, may not be enough to shield him from criminal culpability, according to legal experts.

Although he refused to give names, Enron’s new CEO Stephen Cooper, who was brought in January to steer the company out of bankruptcy, said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” last week that he believed there was “some likelihood that…one or more [former Enron] people could end up going to jail” for their misdeeds.

The documents were a collection of the “mental impressions, analyses and opinions” of attorneys representing the Enron special investigative committee, who interviewed Lay on Jan. 16. The committee was appointed by Enron’s board of directors last fall to look into the questionable off-the-book partnerships that concealed more than $1 billion in debt and are credited with Enron’s swift collapse last year. One of the parties present during the interview was William Powers, who chaired the committee and has since returned to his post as dean of Law School at the University of Texas.

Since Lay refused to testify before Congress, the 17 pages of documents offer the first glimpse into the former Enron executive’s account of the unraveling scandal.

The highlights of the attorney documents, which were released by a subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, include the following:

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