For the first time in an unrestricted interview, Ken Lay is speaking out about Enron. From Sunday's New York Times.

Now, on the eve of what may be the government's final decision on whether to charge him with a crime, Mr. Lay is talking for the first time about the company's collapse in 2001 and the scandal that enveloped it. In more than six hours of interviews with The New York Times, Mr. Lay remained steadfast in his expressions of innocence, even as he acknowledged, as head of the company, accountability for the debacle rests rightfully with him. ``I take full responsibility for what happened at Enron,'' said Mr. Lay, 62. ``But saying that, I know in my mind that I did nothing criminal.''

So whose to blame for the Enron fiasco, according to Lay?

As Mr. Lay describes it, the Enron collapse was the outgrowth of the wrong-headed and criminal acts of the company's finance organization, and specifically its chief financial officer, Andrew S. Fastow. He says that both he and the board were misled by Mr. Fastow about the activities and true nature of a series of off-the-books partnerships that played the decisive role in the company's collapse. Yet, Mr. Lay still argues that some of the company's most controversial decisions - including some that set up financial conflicts of interest for Mr. Fastow that could well be unprecedented in corporate America - had good reasons to be done, and can only be seen as mistakes in hindsight.

Lay's finances have changed dramatically the past few years: