Enron's former top executives, set to testify in Congress, were skewered in a report to the fallen energy giant's board, blamed for shady accounting that overstated earnings by nearly one billion dollars.
The "massive problems" summarised in the 218-page report suggest "a culture of corporate corruption... and put people in real jeopardy," said North Dakota Democrat Mr Byron Dorgan, whose Senate Commerce subcommittee opens hearings tomorrow.
While Mr Dorgan said criminal prosecution of former Enron executives was up to the US Justice Department, Louisiana Republican Representative Mr Billy Tauzin was not so circumspect.
"We're finding what clearly may end up to be security fraud," he said on NBC's Meet the Press. "Maybe somebody oughta go to the pokey for this."
Once the seventh-biggest company in the United States, the energy trader suffered a spectacular collapse in late 2001 and filed for bankruptcy December 2, the largest in history.
AFP