HOUSTON – A lawyer for former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling mounted a blistering attack yesterday on the admitted architect of schemes that helped ruin the company, saying he let his own wife to go to prison because of his raging greed.

The cross-examination of Andrew Fastow, who has linked Mr. Skilling and the founder of Enron, Kenneth Lay, to massive fraud at the company, provided the most tense and dramatic moments yet in the federal trial of the former chief executives.

A lawyer for Mr. Skilling, Daniel Petrocelli, focused on the willingness of the former chief financial officer to watch his wife, Lea, serve a year in prison rather than come clean with federal investigators, and Fastow’s admission that his own children were indirectly caught up in his crimes.

“So you sacrificed your wife to protect your own self-interests, correct?” Mr. Petrocelli asked, in a tone of disbelief.

“I did not go in and plead guilty before that point in time, that’s correct,” Fastow replied.

Lea Fastow served a year in prison for submitting a tax return that failed to classify as income the kickbacks intended for Fastow – some of which were sent in the form of checks to his two young sons. “To do those things you must be consumed with an insatiable greed. Is that fair to say?” Mr. Petrocelli asked.

“I believe I was extremely greedy and that I lost my moral compass and I’ve done terrible things that I very much regret,” answered Fastow, who has pleaded guilty to two conspiracy counts and agreed to serve up to 10 years in federal prison.

The defense lawyer sought to undermine testimony in which Fastow said Mr. Skilling gave his blessing to financial partnerships designed to hide losses at Enron and meet investors’ earnings expectations.

The kickbacks Fastow received that roped his wife into the Enron scandal were separate from those financial partnerships. Under questioning from Mr. Petrocelli, Fastow said Messrs. Skilling and Lay received no money from those kickback schemes.