Mom and I were talking about this. In addition to having them work a minimum wage job, the government treat them like dead-beat parents who won't pay child support, pulling their savings and garnish their wages and putting the money into a pension fund for all the poor souls who lost out. Really, that is what should happen with every dollar found to be gotten through fraud. It should go into a pension fund. I think I'll have to post a blog entry on that.

I'm waiting to see where they will be spending their time. Maybe they will have to go to a prison that only has a nine-hole golf course, I'm sure that would be devastating.

I mean really, they've already had to pay the price. Lay was forced to sell his ten-million dollar vacation home in Aspen, and now he is forced to live in near squalor in his luxury condo in Houston.

The best punishment for them would be to send them to a real prison, you know, the kind ruled by Latino drug gangs and the like. After, of course, all the civil liability suits take away all their money. I can't imagine a better place to put some pudgy middle aged men than at the mercy of violent young men who's grandmothers lost all their money when tgheir pensions tanked.

I'd go for a shorter term. Put them in a rubber dingy in the middle of the Atlantic. No food, no water (hurricane season anyone). If they make it to shore, they're home free.

Of course they could 'buy' out of the sentence, funding schools and hospitals in empoverished areas. You make sure that by the time they have paid all costs, they HAVE to work at McDonalds and have become those pensioners who need to work for a living.

The nine-hole golf course prisons are a myth but not completely.

I'm not sure whether they have been convicted on federal or state charges (anyone?). If it's federal there are two types of facility they might be sent. The first is a Federal Prison Camp (FPC). This is minimal security, no walls, no watchtowers, more like a college dormitory then a prison.
There is one in Bryan Texas (Cut and paste for Google view)
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=1100+URSULINE+AVENUE,+Bryan,+Texas&ll=30.678447,-96.35999&spn=0.00681,0.013475&t=k&om=1
(Oddly, Bryan is also the home of Texas A&M... Interesting, pick up some college sports action on the weekends maybe?)

The other option would be a Low Security prison or Federal Correctional Institutions (FCIs). These DO have walls and watchtowers but are fairly low key. There are lots of these in Texas. Texans seem to have a thing with prisons.
Bastrop (with baseball field and TENNIS COURTS!)
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=1100+URSULINE+AVENUE,+Bryan,+Texas&ll=30.678447,-96.35999&spn=0.00681,0.013475&t=k&om=1

Beaumont (Baseball field and basketball courts)
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=5980+KNAUTH+ROAD+BEAUMONT,+TX+77705&ll=29.965828,-94.076443&spn=0.027438,0.053902&t=k&om=1

Big Spring
Not really google-able...No high resolution images.

Seagoville (Only facility with Spanish visiting regulations. Has baseball, basketball, handball and tennis courts.) This is the country club folks!
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=2113+NORTH+HWY+175,+SEAGOVILLE,+TX+75159&ll=32.655012,-96.567796&spn=0.006666,0.013475&t=k&om=1

La Tuna (love the name)
Also not really google-able. The street doesn't seem to exist. All buildings on the alternatives don't look like prisons. Perhaps a secret prison?

Texarcana (There was a Johnny Cash song about Texarcana, wasn't there? Nothing hi-res so can't tell what they have.)
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=1100+URSULINE+AVENUE,+Bryan,+Texas&ll=30.678447,-96.35999&spn=0.00681,0.013475&t=k&om=1

Three Rivers (No Hi-Res images, difficult to tell what they have)
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=1100+URSULINE+AVENUE,+Bryan,+Texas&ll=30.678447,-96.35999&spn=0.00681,0.013475&t=k&om=1

Have fun ;-)

Ben,

That sounds like the best idea yet; letting them choose between 30 years in prison (or anywhere else) or buying their way out. If the alternate fine was set high enough to bring them down to the average Joe, that'd be pretty good! Then they could truly understand! I wonder how many of their buddies would help them out to get back on their feet after the fall to poverty.

Karen,

If the idea is to make Lay and Skilling understand what they did was wrong, you're probably up for a disappoinment. I think both feel very truely screwed by the system. Just as Duke Cunningham probably showed true remorse in his resignation speech. Not remorse for his misdeed but remorse in being caught.

Lay and Skilling need to be personally punished. Placed there where they have put others. Unfortunately it isn't a realistic proposition. Where do you stop the punishment, the wives, the children, the mistresses? Argueably both men have managed to 'disown' enough money to be able to live comfortably for the rest of their lives. At least more comfortable then anyone reading this comment ever will.

If both spend several years in prison, they will emerge relieved not repentant. The fall from aristocracy is very, very long. Lay and Skilling will move from being the crème de la crème to simply being the upper crust of the crème brule.