Lou Pai: The Only Guy Who’s Ever Been Lucky to Get Divorced

One of the lucky few Enron executives to escape without criminal prosecution, Lou Pai has been referred to as “the only guy who’s ever been lucky to get divorced.” Why was Lou Pai so lucky to get divorced? How did his wife’s discovery of his many year-long affair with a stripper, and their child out-of-wedlock, turn out to be a good thing for Pai? The answer is timing so perfect it almost seemed planned.

Shortly before Enron went belly up Lou Pai’s wife at the time filed for divorce, and her timing could not have been more perfect. As Enron was falling apart at the seems, and serious questions were being asked about the conduct of top Enron executives, Pai was given the perfect excuse to unload all of his holdings n Enron. Claiming that he needed the money to fund his divorce, Pai sold the entirety of his shares of Enron ownership. In a move that the SEC questioned as actually a result of insider information, Pai netted himself somewhere around 300 million dollars.

Ultimately Pai settled out of court with the SEC and deposited 31.5 million in a fund to aid the shareholders harmed by the Enron scandal; forfeiting far less than what he gained from his time in Enron. In the time since, Pai went on to become on of the largest landowners in Colorado, where he lived for a time with his new wife, the former stripper, Melanie Fewell [Pai]. By pleading the 5th Pai has kept himself from testifying in the trials of other Enron executives, and has avoided being charged himself. While his other business ventures have been limited, mainly consisting of scattered investment in pollution emissions and a small energy company, Pai managed to come out of the Enron scandal relatively unscathed. He might indeed be one of the few men who have ever lucky to be served divorce papers.