The Powers Report condemns the breakdown in the company's internal controls, evidenced by the fact that those responsible for making sure executives adhered to ethical standards -- in-house Enron attorneys, Enron's law firm Vinson & Elkins, auditor Arthur Andersen LLP -- obviously did not do so. Things were so bad that attorney Jordan Mintz even went outside the firm to secretly hire outside counsel to take an unbiased look at the shell partnerships, as first reported by Salon.com. In any case, Rex Rogers, the company's deputy general counsel, received a bonus of $375,000. Rogers was the in-house attorney responsible for preparing the disclosure documents for the Securities and Exchange Commission. Enron's SEC documents are one area in particular that has brought harsh criticism from Congress. The documents -- Rogers' work, presumably, though he worked with others at Enron and Vinson & Elkins -- have been slammed for being purposely obfuscating and for not fully disclosing all relevant information.

Another group of lucky bonus recipients raising eyebrows among current and former Enron employees is the team that ran Enron Broadband Services. EBS was one of the biggest money losers for the company and has been criticized as being one of the phoniest of Enron's ventures. It officially died after poor second quarter 2001 reports. This did not stop Enron from awarding EBS's former president and chief executive, Jim Fallon, a $1.5 million bonus. Other former senior executives with EBS were also handsomely rewarded with retention bonuses: Rich Dimichele snagged $800,000; Paul Racicot got $400,000; Stewart Seeligson was handed $350,000, general counsel W. Lance Schuler received $300,000; and Rajeev Thapar was gifted with $250,000.

"People are really upset" about all the money EBS executives were given, said an Enron source.

Reached by phone on Friday, Seeligson wouldn't answer questions about his bonus or even respond when asked what his title was when he was with EBS.

As Salon reported on Jan. 29, Enron attorney Julia Murray cried when she heard that her friend, ex-vice president Kristina Mordaunt, turned a $5,800 investment in one of the shell partnerships into $1 million just a few weeks later. Perhaps some of the sting was taken out for Murray when she received her $200,000 retention bonus.

In Thursday's hearing, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., asked McMahon -- who was chief financial officer at the time -- about the flurry of November retention bonuses and merger bonuses. "As CFO, you would have known that the $100 million was about to be paid out," Markey said. "Did you also know about the imminent bankruptcy at that time?"

McMahon replied that "the retention payments were something that was recommended and approved by the board." McMahon was vague about whether he and other officials knew the company would declare bankruptcy in a matter of hours. "We knew certainly that the bankruptcy was one of several options that could occur," he blandly remarked.

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