The Chronicle’s Mary Flood reports that, upon completion of Mark Koenig‘s testimony earlier today in the Lay-Skilling trial, Koenig’s lawyer released the following statement:

“Mark Koenig has completed his testimony, and he will have nothing more to say until this case is concluded. However, I would like to offer an observation.”
“When a person makes wrongful choices and violates the law, that person confronts another choice. Mark Koenig chose to confront and admit his wrongdoing, and to undertake the most meaningful effort available to him to begin making up for his offense. Over the past year and a half, and especially over the past two weeks, that’s exactly what he has done. He embraced responsibility for what he knew to be wrong, and spoke truth about what happened. And in doing that, he displayed a great deal of courage and strength of character.”

H’mm, “displayed a great deal of courage and strength of character?”
While working for Enron, Koenig was operating under one of two circumstances. Either he was lying to the investment community about Enron or he did not intend to mislead anyone and was simply doing the best he could in the financial storm that ultimately cratered the company.
If it was the former, then Koenig continued to lie to investigators for years until he copped a plea in 2004 in which he bargained for a reduced prison term and a substantial net worth in return for testifying against Lay and Skilling. Moreover, Koenig didn’t even cut that deal with prosecutors until after his assistant — former Enron managing director of investor relations Paula Rieker — had cut her plea deal with prosecutors and agreed to testify against Koenig, among others.
On the other hand, if it was the latter, then Koenig has sold his soul to prosecutors and lied on the witness stand in return for a lighter prison sentence and retention of a substantial net worth.
In short, Koenig is either a liar or a perjurer who cut a deal to hedge his risk of a long jail term and to save some money. Either way, Koenig is not trustworthy and certainly did not display “a great deal of courage and strength of character.”