Doty, resigned. The following day, Dynegy shut down its online energy trading system. Dynegy was quickly approaching bankruptcy by late June 2002. On June 25, the company announced it would sell off assets in an attempt to raise US$2 billion in cash. Moody's downgraded the rating of the company's bonds to "junk" status on June 28. Dynegy announced it might need a financial partner to help it stabilize. After the July 23 announcement, the company's shares dropped 64 percent. Desperate for cash, Dynegy sold the Northern Natural Gas Company to MidAmerican Energy Holdings for $928 million on July 29 ($572 less than it paid for it). The sale saved Dynegy from bankruptcy. Although Dynegy avoided bankruptcy, the fallout from the company's accounting practices continued throughout 2002. In August, former Dynegy controller and chief accounting officer Bradley P. Farnsworth sued the company, saying he'd been fired after refusing to help manipulate the company's financial statements in the summer of 2000. The company suspended its dividend on August 12. On September 3, interim chairman Glenn F. Tilton resigned in order to become chief executive officer of United Airlines. On September 24, Dynegy announced that it had agreed to pay a US$3 million fine for using the Catlin company and other business partnerships to hide losses and taxable income. It also admitted that it had engaged in "round-trip" trades, phony natural gas and electricity trades designed to mislead investors and other companies about the success of Dynegy's online trading operation. The company later fired five traders after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) discovered that Dynegy energy traders had supplied false prices to industry trade publications. The company later paid a US$5 million fine to the CFTC. Still needing cash, Dynegy sold its Hornsea natural gas storage site in the United Kingdom to help pay the fine. Dynegy shuttered its online energy trading business for good on October 16, 2002. The closure led Dynegy to lay off 14 percent of its workforce, which left it with just 4,600 employees. Several Dynegy executives were later convicted or indicted for their roles in Dynegy's near-collapse. In June 2003, Jamie Olis (former Senior Director of Tax Planning), Gene Foster (former Vice President for Taxation), and Helen Sharkey (a former employee in Dynegy's risk control and deal structure groups), were indicted on numerous counts of mail and wire fraud. According to court documents, the three employees conceived