Not everyone can get Fastow's deal.

ANDREW Fastow is one lucky guy.

You wouldn't have known it from watching him stand before a federal judge in Houston, a lawyer on either side, more than 100 onlookers filling the mammoth courtroom and cameras outside jamming the sidewalk.

"Guilty," he said when U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt asked him how he pleads. As the man who designed ways for Enron to cheat investors, who plundered an estimated $60 billion, who is charged with 98 counts of fraud, money laundering, insider trading, tax evasion and obstructing justice, the 42-year-old Fastow could have spent most of the rest of his life in prison.

"North of 20 years" is what Kirby Behre, a former federal prosecutor, says Fastow would have gotten if he had denied guilt, refused to snitch and been convicted. As much as 34 years, depending on the sums involved, says James Felman, a Tampa criminal defense lawyer who advises the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

Fastow seems to have avoided that fate. Federal prosecutors asked Hoyt to sentence Fastow to 10 years on two counts. They said they expect to drop the 96 other charges when it's clear Fastow is truthfully and completely informing on his partners in crime. "It's a huge discount," says Behre, who co-wrote the book, "Federal Sentencing for Business Crimes."

No one to rat on

Even as a discount, l0 years is a long time. And yet, if Fastow had had less to bargain with, if he had been as luckless as most federal defendants, he would find himself in prison two or three times longer.

"If you got somebody to rat on, you can just get out," says William Boman of Houston. His cousin, Christine Taylor, had no one to rat on. At 19, she was arrested with her 35-year-old boyfriend, who had cajoled her into buying certain legal chemicals so he could turn them into methamphetamine. She denied guilt, went to trial, lost and, with a previous, minor drug charge on her record, was sentenced to serve 19 years and seven months.

"She did wrong. Fine. Punish her. But 20 years?" says Julie Stewart, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, which advocates for more judicial discretion in sentencing. Taylor went to prison in 1990 and, with good behavior, can shave about three years off her sentence and be free in 2006.

Unlike her, Lucky Andy Fastow has lots to trade. As chief financial officer during Enron's cheating years, he knew who did what to manipulate Enron's numbers. Because Enron's fraud was so big and so damaging to so many investors, prosecutors are desperate to nail the biggest fish possible.

And, best of all, the Justice Department can't build a case against Enron's former chief executives without Fastow's help, or it would have by now.

That knowledge is already paying off. Information he provided is expected to lead to charges against Richard Causey, Enron's former chief accounting officer, The New York Times reports. And with Fastow the feds are buoyed in their quest for former CEO Jeffrey Skilling, and possibly his predecessor, Kenneth Lay.

It's a good thing, a fine thing, that Fastow pleaded guilty. And given his value to prosecutors, 10 years is about right. The problem is that the sentencing laws that give Fastow a get-out-of-jail-early card punish those whose crimes are less damaging and who don't have anyone to turn in.

Warping the justice system

Luckless is what you'd have to call Joann Zedler, whose neighbor called police to report a domestic disturbance at the Zedlers' home in Austin, Texas. By the time the cops arrived, Alan Zedler was nowhere to be found, but their marijuana farm was, according to Families Against Mandatory Minimums. "This just doesn't seem right," a federal judge remarked as he gave both Zedlers the mandatory l0 years in prison.

The problem is that Congress keeps ratcheting up federal sentences while taking away judicial authority to tailor punishments to fit the circumstances. The only sure way to knock substantial time off these outrageously long, set-in-stone sentences is to plead guilty (whether you are or not) and tell authorities everything they want to know.

Felman says the situation creates an incentive to lie. It "has totally warped the truth-seeking function" of the criminal justice system, he says.

>From Chief Justice William Rehnquist on down, more and more judges have been complaining out loud that Congress is strait jacketing judges.

U.S. District Judge David Hittner added his protest. He told prosecutors and the lawyer for Fastow's wife, Lea, that he wouldn't go along with their demand that he immediately sentence 2her according to a plea agreement without first getting the standard, full report on her background, her crimes and the way sentencing law applies to her case.

"That's at least one option that a federal judge does reserve," said Hittner. Lea Fastow agreed to Hittner's terms, and for now, the his-and-hers plea deals appear to be on track.

As Stewart put it, Andrew Fastow "is one of the lucky ones."

Ann Woolner is a columnist for Bloomberg News.