David B. Duncan (born 1960) is a former partner of

Arthur Andersen Arthur Andersen LLP was an American accounting firm based in Chicago that provided auditing, tax advising, consulting and other professional services to large corporations. By 2001, it had become one of the world's largest multinational corpo ...

, and was the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

government's star

witness In law, a witness is someone who, either voluntarily or under compulsion, provides testimonial evidence, either oral or written, of what they know or claim to know. A witness might be compelled to provide testimony in court, before a grand jur ...

in the

trial In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal, w ...

. He has said fears over interpretation prompted him to order the shredding of documents relating to

Enron Enron Corporation was an American Energy development, energy, Commodity, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. It was led by Kenneth Lay and developed in 1985 via a merger between Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth, both re ...

. Duncan grew up in

Odessa, Texas Odessa () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Ector County, Texas, Ector County with portions extending into Midland County, Texas, Midland County. Odessa's population was 114,428 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 ...

, and graduated from

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, TA&M, or TAMU) is a public university, public, Land-grant university, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas, United States. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of ...

in 1980 with a degree in accounting. He began working at Arthur Andersen's Houston office in 1981 and become a partner at the firm in 1995. In 1997, he was assigned as the lead partner on the Enron account and was paid over $1 million for his work. During this time, Duncan became a member of the 18-partner Andersen CEO Advisory Council and Andersen's representative on the 36-member American Council for Capital Formation. He was fired from Andersen in January 2002 and charged with

obstruction of justice In United States jurisdictions, obstruction of justice refers to a number of offenses that involve unduly influencing, impeding, or otherwise interfering with the justice system, especially the legal and procedural tasks of prosecutors, investiga ...

for ordering Andersen staff to shred over a ton of papers related to Enron. On April 9, 2002, he pleaded guilty; the maximum sentence for his crimes is ten years, but since he pleaded guilty and became a witness for the

prosecution A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the adversarial system, which is adopted in common law, or inquisitorial system, which is adopted in Civil law (legal system), civil law. The prosecution is the ...

he would have presumably received a much smaller sentence. His sentencing date was postponed numerous times. He withdrew his guilty plea on December 12, 2005, after the overturning of the Arthur Andersen conviction. This was approved by U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon. In January 2008 he settled charges with the SEC that he violated securities laws. In November 2011,

The Houston Chronicle The ''Houston Chronicle'' is the largest daily newspaper in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. it is the third-largest newspaper by Sunday circulation in the United States, behind only ''The New York Times'' and the ''Los Angeles Times''. ...

/Fuelfix reported that Duncan was Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Houston-based U.S. Pipeline. He currently resides in Houston, Texas and has three daughters.

References

1960 births Living people Enron scandal American accountants Crime witnesses {{US-crime-bio-stub 20th-century American businesspeople