But Linda Lay, in an interview with NBC's ``Today'' program that was taped at her home in Houston over the weekend, said her husband had been grossly misunderstood and was a victim of ''mass hysteria.''
``Nobody even knows what the truth is yet. The only thing I know, 100 percent for sure, is that my husband is an honest, decent, moral human being who would do absolutely nothing wrong,'' she said.
Linda Lay, who broke down in sobs as she recalled how her husband had told her shortly before Enron's collapse he could not turn the company around, said she could understand the anger and loss felt by employees when they recalled her husband's earlier, publicly upbeat, attitude toward the company.
``If I were back there listening to all the things that were being said I would absolutely have to say, 'What is wrong here? How can all of this be happening without someone doing something terribly wrong?''' Linda Lay said.
But she said there were many things her husband had not been told that would come out in the investigations now under way. ``Those things will all come to light and that's what we're all praying for.''
Asked what had happened to the reported $300 million in compensation and stocks her husband earned over the past four years, Linda Lay said the couple relied on now-worthless Enron stock.
``Everything we had mostly was in the one stock,'' she said. ''Other than the home we live in, everything else is for sale ... We are fighting for liquidity. We don't want to go bankrupt.''
Shares in Enron, which filed the largest U.S. bankruptcy ever on Dec. 2, traded at more than $90 in Aug. 2000 but now trades over-the-counter at about 45 cents.