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Worldcom CEO Cries Like A Baby As He's Sentenced To 25 Years
Posted by Pile
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 Crying like a baby (who ran a multinational corporation into the ground and defauded thousands of people and blew billions of dollars), former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Don't drop the soap Bernie. |
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The 25-year sentence Bernard Ebbers, WorldCom's former chief executive, was dealt for orchestrating an $11bn accounting fraud at the telecoms company is a portentous symbol for white-collar executives awaiting sentencing on similar charges.
On Wednesday, former federal prosecutors used words such as “sobering” and “staggering” to describe the length of time that Mr Ebbers, 63, is to serve if he fails to win an appeal against the sentence.
John Coffee, a law professor at Columbia University, said the severity of the sentence was unusual since Mr Ebbers was not convicted of embezzling money or profiting directly from the fraud.
“If I were the sitting judge, I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable giving out this sentence for this crime. A sentence of more than ten years used to be reserved for people who were exceptionally dangerous like mafia kingpins or Charles Manson.”
Mr Ebbers' sentence is the most severe served to a white-collar criminal in recent history. Consider his peers. John Rigas, the 80-year old founder of Adelphia Communications was sentenced to 15 years in prison for looting the cable television company and lying to investors. Meanwhile, Andrew Fastow, the former chief financial officer of Enron who was considered the architect of the scheming at the bankrupt energy trader, was sentenced to 10 years under a plea deal in which he agreed to co-operate with prosecutors.
“Mr Ebbers' sentence wasn't proportionate with what the others have gotten,” said Kirby Behre of the US law firm Paul Hastings.
Legal analysts say the chances of a successful appeal are slim. In court on Wednesday, Reid Weingarten, Mr Ebber's chief counsel, bemoaned the fact that the trial was not heard in Mississippi, where WorldCom was based.
Just a few weeks ago, a jury in Birmingham, Alabama found Richard Scrushy, the former chief executive of HealthSouth, not guilty of co-ordinating a multi-billion dollar accounting fraud at the healthcare company he founded. Prosecutors had felt they had a cast iron case against Mr Scrushy. The WorldCom fraud put white-collar crime on the US political agenda in 2002. The accounting abuses that led to the collapse of Enron in December 2001 was were seen by some at the time as anomalous. WorldCom's collapse just months later involving an even larger fraud put paid to that view.
Mr Ebbers agreed recently to give up much of his personal fortune, estimated to be as much as $45m, to settle with WorldCom investors. WorldCom filed for bankruptcy protection in July 2002. Five other former WorldCom executives are set to be sentenced this summer, including Scott Sullivan, former chief financial officer and chief prosecution witness against Mr Ebbers. All have pleaded guilty. |
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| Posted by Demosthenes on 2005-07-13 23:54:34 | PRAISE THE LORD
My dad worked for world com and when they went bankrupt we lost thousands of dollars in stock, that little f*cker should be thrown in jail for life.
My family didnt even get the worst of it. |
You Know...
Posted by Darken on 2005-07-14 09:22:15 | That photo of Bernie in cuffs looks a lot like a Vince Price shot. Wonder if he's trying to cop sympathy the same way Price did for his characters?
All I gotta say is two things:
1)Milk it to the hilt Bernie, because it'll probably be the last moment you'll have in the limelight. Once you go into the pen, you'll be no different than the rest of the prisoners.
2)Man, the big executives do when they publicly embarrass themselves! |
what comes around, goes around
Posted by Samuel(LA) on 2005-07-25 01:46:05 | | Never be greedy. And, be generous. Advice from my parents. |
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