One wonders if his lawyers and accountants sat down with him and his family at their wonderful estate in Aspen, CO, and layed out the following scenario:

It's pretty clear that part of his sentence would be a massive fine, basically decimating his estate. It was also pretty clear that he was going to spend the rest of his life in Federal PMITA Prison.

However, if he were to die before sentencing, then his conviction is vacated and no fines would be imposed. Thus his estate would not be affected by said vacated conviction and his heirs would get his money. That's when the lawyers and the accountants left the room, leaving the family to discuss matters.

One can argue that Alpha Males such as Kenny Boy (according to Tony Snow, an "acquaintance" of Bush's) strive to maintain complete control over all facets of their lives, and clearly being in prison is not conducive to maintaining such control.

So given that he would lose both his freedom and (what remains of) his wealth, Lay decided (or was persuaded by his family) that the best thing for all concerned was for him to die without it appearing as a suicide (as that would most likely nullify any life-insurance contracts). He's got the means and the motive to hire a doctor who could make his death look like a heart attack.

Sounds like a case for Goran and Eames on next week's "Law And Order: Criminal Intent."

HAVING SAID ALL OF THAT ...

The sentencing was set for, when, October? It's rather likely that one the day after this November's elections, Bush was going to pardon Kenny Boy and his pal Skilling, so maybe Kenny Boy would spend a week in prison, if that. One would imagine that Skilling will still be pardoned. Remember, after the election, Bush has nothing to lose: he can't run for re-election and one can imagine Republicans vying for office in 2008 would run away from his endorsement.

-a

BTW: Federal PMITA Prison is from "Office Space." It means Federal "Pound Me In The Ass" Prison.