Court TV Host: Chat about the Enron collapse with New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald, author of the new book about the scandal, Conspiracy of Fools.

Court TV Host: Kurt Eichenwald is here! Thank you for being our guest online today.

Kurt Eichenwald: Thanks for having me.

Question from ksc: Why was the Justice Department so slow to get Ken Lay and so quick to get Martha Stewart?

Kurt Eichenwald: LOL. Because the case against Martha Stewart involved a single transaction, conducted on a single day involving a handful of telephone conversations, involving less than 5 people. Those records and witnesses very quickly established a case. The Enron case involved thousands of transactions dating back to 1996, some domestic, some international, with hundreds of witnesses, millions of pages of records, and exceedingly complex accounting and finance issues. So it's no surprise that Martha Stewart's case was faster. The ken lay case also was not slow. As someone who writes about white collar fraud for a living, I've been very surprised at how quickly the Enron cases have been put together. Remember, the government's goal is not to make headlines -- it's to win at trial, and you can't do that without an investigation.

Question from ally_oops: Did you interview Fastow, Skilling or K. Lay?

Kurt Eichenwald: I can't answer that. As the book describes, almost every interview I did was done on the condition of anonymity. I can say that many readers have commented on how deeply I got into the heads of those guys.

Question from genevieve: Why was Lea Fastow handed such a heavy sentence?

Kurt Eichenwald: That's a very interesting question. Most people look at her case and say why did she get such a light sentence. So I'm impressed with the questioner, who recognizes that her sentence was fairly heavy given the charge. I think that ultimately Lea Fastow was wrapped into the Enron case, and there's no escaping it. For those not aware, the charges against her had nothing to do with the collapse of Enron. She was charged with a personal income tax violation. But her case was always, and always seemed to be handled in the shadow of Enron, and I think her sentence reflects that.

Question from Heynow: Mr. Eichenwald, do you feel its a slam dunk for the prosecution of Kenneth Lay, and also do you feel with Lay being George W. Bush's largest campaign contributor in his 2000 election he may get pardoned if convicted?

Kurt Eichenwald: The part of the case that to me seemed the hardest to defend has been separated from the case for very good reasons. That has left charges that are NOT a slam dunk. It's going to be a battle on both sides. Unfortunately, most people believe that Lay has been indicted in fact on charges that have never been brought. The actual allegations against him are going to be on a much smaller scale than certainly the jury being seated is going to imagine. So I think the government is also going to have to get around the disappointment factor, but ultimately if they can prove that he knowingly lied in the fall of 2001, they win. Regarding a Bush pardon, I'm not big on predicting the future, but I would be astonished to see such a thing. Ken Lay was a political friend, someone who does a politician good. Once he stops doing the politician good, he stops being a friend. I can't imagine that George Bush would stake his legacy on a pardon to Ken lay simply because he gave him contributions to the 2000 elections. But again, I also said Michael Jackson's "Thriller" would never sell.

Question from ally_oops: How much money was lost in the Enron scandal, is there a figure?

Kurt Eichenwald: A minimum number would be $70 billion. If you want to start blowing it out to the indirect losses, I couldn't give you a number, but it would be a multiple of that. The other costs -- ultimately Enron made the world question the quality of corporate financial reporting, with good reason, and that contributed to an overall collapse of the market. Since Enron's collapse, the energy markets themselves have pretty much been destroyed... and if you start playing out the impacts, they're pretty incalculable.

Question from ally_oops: Did you go to Houston to investigate?

Kurt Eichenwald: My family used to joke that I had a second family in Houston, which of course, gave me the great line: whenever I was asked to do a chore at home, I would say that "My Houston wife never asked me to do that." The book itself is based on more than a 1000 hours of interviews, most of them conducted in Houston, as well as millions of pages of documents, most of which were generated in Houston, so I was there a lot.

Question from ally_oops: How many other Enrons do you think are out there right now, undiscovered??

Kurt Eichenwald: Not as many as people think, I think that in the fall of 2001 there were plenty, but corporate collapse has a way of snapping awake the senses. And there's been a lot of effort in the last few years of companies cleaning up their finances On the other hand, fraud is always with us -- we'll have another one -- we always do.

Question from polka: Can California ever recoup any of the billions that it lost due to the Enron scandal?

Kurt Eichenwald: California is in an interesting situation. The California energy crisis was not caused by Enron, it was caused by a lousy market. Enron made it far, far worse and calculating that, though, is pretty difficult. The big battle wasn't for California to get money back, it was for California to not have to pay under the contracts it entered into. And I think there's a very good case for that.

Court TV Host: I think I read that your book is the basis for a big Hollywood movie?

Kurt Eichenwald: Hollywood likes a corporate thriller. It's my last book, The Informant, that's being made into a movie starring Matt Damon. Conspiracy of Fools was just released, and I know a number of studios are reading it, but I'm not willing to bet yet that it will be a movie. Time will tell.

Question from Heynow: Mr. Eichenwald, arer you familiar with any relationship between the then Governor of California Grey Davis and Kenneth Lay?

Kurt Eichenwald: They certainly were in discussions during the California energy crisis, and those discussions are portrayed in the book, far better than I can describe them here.

Question from ally_oops: Who's the most culpable in the Enron scandal?

Kurt Eichenwald: We are. The investors of the 90s were the ones who threw their money into businesses that we didn't understand. When government regulators said the accounting rules were bad, and politicians shut down their efforts to fix them, we just kept partying. The truth of the matter is that criminals and buffoons are always with us. But they can't get into our homes until we leave the doors open -- and that's what happened.

Court TV Host: Any closing thoughts?

Kurt Eichenwald: Just that folks should know "Conspiracy of Fools" is not a book written for people who care about Enron, it 's not a book written for accounting majors or energy specialists -- it's a corporate thriller. It's meant to be a true Grisham novel. So, if that's the kind of story you like to read, I hope you'll read it.