David Wittig and his “chief strategy officer” finally will have to face the music after their lengthy legal dancing to dodge charges that they looted Wester Energy Inc. of millions of dollars. Which they did.

Wittig, 50, the former Westar chief executive officer, was found guilty Monday, by a jury, of 39 counts of conspiracy, wire fraud, circumventing internal controls and money laundering while he was running the state’s largest electric utility. Douglas T. Lake, 55, was found guilty of 30 counts of conspiracy, wire fraud, circumventing internal controls and money laundering. It is likely they will appeal these charges.

That’s a long rap sheet for two big-time operators who thought they could carry out their massive journey to self-aggrandizement. This didn’t happen in New York, Los Angeles, Houston or one of those other big towns where fraud and deceit are so common. It all occurred right here in little old Kansas, where the money looked so good and the Wittig-Lake ambition was far, far bigger. They took a solid company that once was noted for its sound operation and drove it down the road toward oblivion.

The good news is that new management seems to be righting the grievous wrongs that had been done. There is more good news. The two men who orchestrated this shameful ripoff have been found guilty and, are likely to spend a lot of years behind bars to atone for their greed. Just recently, another crooked chief operator who was involved in an $18-billion business scandal got 25 years in prison. No good reason Wittig and Lake shouldn’t get about the same. And they are due for some repayments.

Their convictions came in the second trial for Lake and Wittig. Their first ended in mistrial last year after jurors were unable to reach a consensus on more than half the charges. Prosecutors claimed the men, forced out of Westar in late 2002, engineered extravagant salaries and benefits for themselves at the expense of shareholders, hiding much of their actions from the company’s board of directors and federal regulators. That takes some scurrilous intent and planning.

Prosecutors say the men regularly used company planes for vacations and other private trips, attempted to secure huge windfalls from a proposed merger with a New Mexico utility and spinoff of Westar’s nonregulated subsidiaries, abused a program that paid executives for relocating to Topeka and used Westar lawyers to rid the board of directors of their critics.

Dan Lykins, a Topeka attorney who had been critical of Westar’s Wittig-led management, said Wittig and Lake’s actions were most damaging to retirees who had bought Westar stock, expecting it to generate stable dividends for them to live upon. This plight has devastated many, many people in ever so many American firms where money was mishandled and whisked away by crooked executives. Yet there also was the element of keeping one of the best firms in the state operating well for the benefit of the public. That seemed to be the least of the concerns for Wittig and Lake as they plundered the firm and were en route to ruining it.

It is difficult to believe, but Wittig and Lake are in arbitration with Westar over the men’s claim that the utility owes them tens of millions of dollars under their employment agreements.

Wittig also arranged for sizable loans of money to re-do his historic Alf Landon home in Topeka and was supposed to get all that free if he left the firm. He left, but all sorts of restitution is due after the jury’s decision; if Wittig and Lake end up penniless, so be it. We can only hope that their legal fees are covered by only two sources, themselves.

These men betrayed the trust of a lot of good people – including Westar customers and shareholders -in their rampage through the treasury. It’s fitting they may have to pay back everything that can be gained while also doing time in prison.

They deserve no less.