Ebbers guilty - Ex-WorldCom chairman guilty on all nine counts in massive accounting fraud.

CNN ^ | 3/15/2005 | NA

[Daus]

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Bernard Ebbers, the former CEO of WorldCom, was found guilty Tuesday for his role in the mammoth accounting scandal that brought the company down two and half years ago.

A federal jury in New York, on its eighth day of deliberations, convicted Ebbers on all nine counts that he helped mastermind a $11 billion accounting fraud at WorldCom, now known as MCI.

[OldFriend]

Unfortunately, honest folks are hurt by the crooks among us. Those who think they can lie, cheat and steal with impunity often walk about unscathed.

This time, justice prevailed.

[OldFriend]

Civil court is different than criminal court.

[OldFriend]

The way things are going at FNC, I fully expect to see Scott Ritter hosting a show of his own.

[Grampa Dave]

Good news!

[proud American in Canada]

"Yeah, my s-i-l bitterly joked that, after Ebber's got done, her 401K was more like on 001K."

LOL!

What's sad is so many people took early retirement when things were flying high.

Wasn't the $500 million or whatever he already had enough? No, he had to commit fraud to get even richer.

[1rudeboy]

I understand. I presumed that this was criminal court. Note that Ebbers was found "guilty," not "liable."

[proud American in Canada]

"unrealized loss or real?"

Well, it was all on paper.

Like so many others, we never sold. It started to slide and nobody could believe that it could keep going down like that. It was a retirement fund and we thought, someday it *has* to bounce back.

Then the fraud became public and it was worth about $250.

[cake_crumb]

"Ken Lay hasn't been convicted yet, has he?"

No, he hasn't. He's got two trials, wants different juries, blames Fastow 9he fooled me, I'm a victim, yada yada; Martha Stewart defense).

On the other hand, John and Tim Rigas were convicted and will be sentenced this month.

Shame the trials couldn't come sooner for Lay, but I'd rather Justice had all it's ducks in a nice, neat row.

[higgmeister]

Federal PMITA prison.

[cake_crumb]

"How much more money has the federal government spent without veto since 2000?"

This question has what, exactly, to do with a fraud/conspiracy conviction?

[Liz]

GWB proves once again why Values Voters put him back into office.

[ken5050]

As one who has been reading the daily articles on the trial, what's most interesting is that the majority of the talkng heads had it wrong..they all said that Ebbers was making a good defnse..that the government's case was weak, that the jury was falling asleep during the trial, etc....

[KC_Conspirator]

There are a few out there who insist on defending white collar crooks.

[MamaLucci]

The way things are going at FNC, I fully expect to see Scott Ritter hosting a show of his own.

Sad, but true. Geraldo was the first clue.

[wallcrawlr]

Unrealized Loss: A loss that results from holding on to an asset rather than cashing it in and officially taking the loss.

[Aquinasfan]

he helped mastermind a $11 billion accounting fraud

It would be hard to embezzle that much money on your own. How many other people are going down?

[Aquinasfan]

Or was that Enron?

I think that was Tyco.

[Julliardsux]

Ebbers has a significant appellate point with the sentencing factors being given to the jury in its instructions. Could have been prejudicial error.

[jdm]

"It started to slide and nobody could believe that it could keep going down like that."

I first got involved in the stock market in March 2000, when I was 24. Worst timing to dump money into the market since the 1930s, probably.

I dumped all but $10K into the market and had a negative 84% return within 18 months following March 2000. Not everyone thought stocks like Cisco, JDS Uniphase, Nortel, EMC, Network Appliance, etc. were going to tank the way they did. I was trying to be a "buy and hold" investor and I blew it, big time.

I figured the most I'd ever be down would be 33% and I could live with that. For me, getting into the stock market was the single most worst decision I've ever made my entire life. Period. I'd give everything to go back to 1999.

[proud American in Canada]

"A loss that results from holding on to an asset rather than cashing it in and officially taking the loss."

Yes, and we wouldn't have had the loss had we cashed it in. The stock was soaring and we were not close to retirement, so we held on to it when it started to slip.

And maybe some one can correct me if I'm wrong, but if I'm not mistaken, I believe that MCI contributed more on the matching contributions when you chose to buy MCI stock for your 401K instead of mutual funds.

It was quite some time ago so I don't remember for sure, but I think that MCI encouraged buying their own stock in that way.