TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Former WorldCom CEO Guilty on All Counts

Former WorldCom CEO Guilty on All Counts

Lisa Minter (lisa_minter2001@cableone.net)
15 Mar 2005 13:44:56 -0800

Former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers Convicted

The verdict marked a colossal fall for Ebbers, who had turned a humble
Mississippi long-distance provider into a global telecommunications
power, swallowing up companies along the way and earning the nickname
"Telecom Cowboy."

A federal jury in Manhattan returned guilty verdicts on all nine
counts, including securities fraud, conspiracy and lying to
regulators; a decision that could send Ebbers, 63, to prison for the
rest of his life. Sentencing was set for June 13.

The former chief executive reddened deeply when the jury announced its
verdict after eight days of deliberations, and his wife, Kristie,
burst into tears in the courtroom's front row. Later, as his lawyer
spoke outside, promising an appeal, Ebbers and his wife nearly
toppled by the enormous crew of cameras and reporters camped outside
the federal courthouse; made their way to a nearby street,
hailed a cab and drove away.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales called the conviction a "triumph of
our legal system." He said the jury had recognized that the fraud
"extended from the middle management levels of this company all the
way to its top executive."

In a six-week trial, prosecutors painted Ebbers as obsessed with
keeping WorldCom stock high, and panicked about pressure he was
getting over $400 million in personal loans that were backed by
his own WorldCom shares.

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