Lea Fastow

{{Notability|Biography|date=April 2025}}{{Short description|American businesswoman}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2024}}

{{Infobox person

| birth_name= Lea Weingarten

| image =

| caption =

| birth_date=

| birth_place= Houston, Texas

| parents= Jack Weingarten (businessman), Miriam Hadar (Miss Israel, journalist lawyer)

| spouse= Andrew Fastow

| education = Tufts University
Northwestern University (MBA)

| children= Jeffrey Fastow, Matthew Fastow{{cite news|url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2003-11-23/heiress-in-handcuffs|title=Heiress In Handcuffs|date=November 24, 2003|publisher=Bloomberg}}{{cite news|url=http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2004-01-08-fastowsfate_x.htm|title=A long fall for Enron couple|publisher=USA Today}}

}}

Lea Weingarten Fastow is a former Enron assistant treasurer who pleaded guilty to tax evasion and filing fraudulent Income Tax returns. The wife of former Enron executive and convicted felon Andrew Fastow, she was the second former Enron executive to go to prison after Enron collapsed due to fraud in December 2001. {{Cite web |title=Lea Fastow pleads guilty in Enron case - May. 6, 2004 |url=https://money.cnn.com/2004/05/06/news/midcaps/enron_lfastow/ |access-date=2022-10-12 |website=money.cnn.com}}

Fastow is a native of Houston, Texas, where she was born into a Jewish family. Her mother was Miriam Hadar Weingarten, winner of the Miss Israel competition in 1958, and her father was Jack Weingarten, of the Weingarten's supermarket chain, who was a real-estate broker. When she was young her parents divorced and her mother went on to marry to Akiva Nof, and from this marriage was born a half-sister. She graduated from Tufts University, where she met her future husband, and earned an MBA at Northwestern University. She and her husband both attended Congregation Or Ami, a conservative synagogue.{{cite web|url=http://www.chron.com/business/enron/article/Andrew-Fastow-A-study-in-contrasts-2104340.php|title=Andrew Fastow: A study in contrasts|date=October 3, 2002|publisher=}}

In 2003, Fastow was indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiracy to commit wire fraud; money laundering conspiracy and four counts of filing false income tax returns.{{Cite web|title=Fastow faces more charges; wife and 7 execs are indicted - May. 1, 2003|url=https://money.cnn.com/2003/05/01/news/companies/enron/#:~:text=Lea%20Fastow,%20left,%20wife%20of,Andrew%20Fastow,%20was%20indicted%20Thursday.&text=The%20jury%20returned%20a%20six,and%20filing%20false%20tax%20returns.|access-date=2021-07-19|website=money.cnn.com}} She pleaded guilty on January 14, 2004, to submitting a fraudulent income tax return that did not include profits her family had received from her husband's off-the-books partnerships.{{Cite web|title=Fastow pleads guilty and agrees to cooperate in Enron case - Jan. 15, 2004|url=https://money.cnn.com/2004/01/14/news/companies/enron_fastows/|access-date=2021-07-19|website=money.cnn.com}}

Fastow reported to prison on July 12, 2004, and was released to a halfway house on July 11, 2005.{{Cite news|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-jun-07-fi-fastow7-story.html|title=Lea Fastow to Complete Sentence at Halfway House|agency=Associated Press|date=2005-06-07|work=Los Angeles Times|access-date=2017-04-25|language=en-US|issn=0458-3035}}