ANDREW FASTOW, the former finance director of Enron, was told by Jeff Skilling, his former boss, to “juice up” the energy company’s earnings to meet Wall Street profits forecasts, Mr Fastow told a packed court in Houston yesterday.

Mr Fastow implicated his former chief executive during his first hours on the witness stand in the fraud trial of Mr Skilling and Ken Lay, the former Enron chairman. The 44-year-old former finance chief, who has pleaded guilty to two fraud charges and to participating in a criminal conspiracy that led to Enron’s collapse, also said that he only broke the law because he wanted to be a “hero for Enron” by hiding losses and inflating profits.

Mr Fastow has admitted setting up the off-balance-sheet partnerships allegedly used to hide Enron debt and to boost profits. He told the court that Mr Skilling told him to use those partnerships to “give me all the juice you can” on earnings.

“We were using this to inflate our earnings,” Mr Fastow said.

The former finance chief, whose hair has gone completely grey in the four years since Enron collapsed, appeared mainly calm, even though this was the first time he had spoken in public since the record-breaking bankruptcy in December 2001.

His stoic features cracked only briefly as John Hueston, one of the US government prosecutors, asked why he had decided to plead guilty to the fraud charges while his bosses maintained their innocence. Mr Fastow poured a glass of water, took a sip and said: “I pleaded guilty because I am guilty and I thought that decision would be in the best interest of my family.”

Mr Fastow was originally charged with 98 counts of fraud, but those were reduced to two — for which he faces ten years in jail and forfeiture of $24 million — after he agreed to give evidence against his colleagues.

“I thought it was in the best interest of my family not to go to trial, to take responsibility for my actions and go forward with my life,” Mr Fastow said.

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