The unusual nature of Ken Lay‘s somewhat desperate public relations campaign in connection with the criminal charges that are pending against him has been noted earlier here, here, and here.
Not to be outdone, the Enron Task Force pumped its PR machine into action by leaking to the Houston Chronicle this allegedly secret memo between former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow and former Enron chief accountant Richard Causey.
The gist of the Chronicle article is that, according to the Task Force, the memo proves that Fastow and Causey had secret side deals in which Enron guaranteed a great rate of return for the off-balance sheet partnerships that Fastow ran and in which Enron allegedly parked poorly-performing assets and hid enormous amounts of debt. The Task Force contends that the secret memo agreement between Fastow and Causey proves that the off-balance sheet partnerships were not entities at risk and, thus, should have been reported as a part of Enron’s consolidated financial statements. If that had been done, then Enron would have been revealed to the marketplace as a highly-leveraged company that would not have generated anything close to the investor interest that pushed the stock price to $80 a share in early 2001.
The Chronicle goes on to speculate that the revelation of the memo puts pressure on Mr. Causey to plea bargain with the Task Force:

A handwritten memo detailing secret side deals between ex-Enron Chief Accounting Officer Rick Causey and ex-Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow has defense lawyers predicting that Causey is under greater pressure to seek a deal with the government.
The document, which prosecutors have called the “global galactic” agreement, seemed a part of Enron folklore until it was cited as an actual written agreement in the indictment of ex-Chairman Ken Lay earlier this month.

Since Fastow has already pleaded guilty to two felony charges and is cooperating with the government, the written document can’t hurt him in the criminal arena. Most lawyers contacted this week suspect prosecutors received the written agreement from Fastow.
“It’s a very difficult document for team Causey. It’s as tough a document to refute as I’ve seen in the Enron case,” said a lawyer for one of the Enron criminal defendants who asked that his name not be used.
He and other defense lawyers in Enron cases, who spoke off the record, said there is growing expectation, largely because of this document, that Causey could be pressured to cooperate with the government.

As if facing what amounts to be a life sentence if convicted of the criminal charges against him is not enough incentive for Mr. Causey to entertain a plea bargain.
Despite the representations in the Chronicle article, most attorneys close to the Enron case have known for some time about the Fastow-Causey memo. And, although not a good piece of evidence for Mr. Causey, it is a decidedly double-edged sword for the Task Force in regard to the other Enron-related defendants. Unless the Task Force can prove that other Enron defendants such as Mr. Lay or former CEO Jeffrey Skilling knew of the Fastow-Causey memo, then the memo may be used as exculpatory evidence for other Enron defendants who could reasonably claim that the Fastow-Causey agreement was secret, that they would have never approved of it, and that the memo proves that Mr. Fastow truly was the loose cannon who manipulated Enron’s finances for personal gain to the extent that he ultimately triggered its collapse.