By AP/KWMU
Columbia, MO – The Associated Press has obtained documents that show the University of Missouri is holding onto a big donation that Enron founder Ken Lay made in 1998.
That includes refusing Lay's request last fall to steer that gift to Hurricane Katrina relief. The documents also show the university rejected Lay's request in February to return the gift to him to pay his legal bills.
Lay is a Missouri native and Mizzou alum from the 60s. His $1.1 million gift in 1998 was to endow a professorship, but that chair remains vacant. University documents show a group of economics professors are still seeking a worthy occupant for the Kenneth L. Lay Chair in Economics.
And Lay's fate rests in the hands of a Houston jury over the collapse of Enron. Lay is also on trial in a separate case relating to his personal bankruptcy.