Playboy uncovers corporate scandal

Invites women of WorldCom and Andersen to pose

Former Enron employees sign copies of Playboy's August issue.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Playboy magazine, which scored a hit with its "Women of Enron" pictorial in the current issue, wants women from troubled telecom WorldCom Inc. and embattled accounting firm Arthur Andersen to pose for future issues.

The men's magazine said it is seeing strong newsstand sales of its current issue, which featured an Enron employee on the cover.

While national sales figures for the August issue are not yet available, company spokeswoman Elizabeth Norris said sales in the Houston area, home of Enron and of six of the 10 women who posed nude or semi-nude in the pictorial, have been about five times normal.

The publisher said once the August issue was published, it started getting phone calls from employees at WorldCom and Andersen who were also interested in posing.

The magazine is asking interested women from WorldCom and Andersen to send in two photographs, one with them wearing a two-piece bathing suit and one a head shot.

Norris said about 450 past or current Enron employees inquired about appearing in the magazine. She would not say what the chosen 10 were paid.

Enron filed for bankruptcy protection in December after being forced to re-state financial results. Enron's auditor, Arthur Andersen, has been convicted of federal obstruction of justice charges for destruction of Enron documents and has seen a number of other clients reveal accounting problems as well.

WorldCom has admitted it improperly classified $3.8 billion of expenses, inflating a key measure of earnings. The revelation has pushed its stock prices to below $1 a share.

Playboy magazine historically has had photo spreads of high-profile women, some involved in public scandals, including Jessica Hahn, who helped bring down evangelist Jim Bakker, and more recently Darva Conger, the winning contestant in the controversial Fox show, "Who wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire."

The Enron pictorial was the first scandal-based feature in which the subjects were unknown to the general public.

Playgirl, an unrelated publication that features pictures of nude men, plans to publish a Men of Enron feature in its issue available in September.