Donklephant » Blog Archive » Laugh All the Way to the Bank, Cry All the Way to Prison

Laugh All the Way to the Bank, Cry All the Way to Prison

By Montag | Related entries in Money

Update: moments before I posted this, Donklephant’s own J. Thomas Duffy posted this hilarious take on the same topic.
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Bernie Ebbers, the former CEO of WorldCom who was at the helm when an $11 billion accounting fraud went down, has been found guilty of orchestrating the crime and sentenced to 25 years in the slammer.

He has been characterized as a

…man who made much of his humble roots as an ex-milkman and basketball coach whose grasp of accounting and technology were limited.

Throughout the six week trial the former chief exec maintained he knew nothing of the book fiddling that brought the telecoms giant to its knees. Instead, he told the court he left all the financial matters to his bean counters.

You were the CEO, you’re responsible for all that stuff. Nice try though. (It’s good to see that the incompetent fool defense didn’t work):

Following eight days of deliberation, the Manhattan federal jury returned guilty verdicts on charges of conspiracy, securities fraud, and seven counts of filing false reports.

The Judge said Ebbers “was clearly a leader of criminal activity in this case.”

The Register: Ebbers weeps as sentence handed down

Ebbers could spend 25 years in prison, which at 67 could very well mean the rest of his life. Don’t worry, Bernie, I’d weep too.

Will heavy sentences like this deter other would-be corporate criminals? Or is the lure of money and power too great to resist?

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 14th, 2005 and is filed under Money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Laugh All the Way to the Bank, Cry All the Way to Prison”

tom allan Says:
July 14th, 2005 at 10:10 pm
One would think that all these sentences handed down to people like Ebbers would have some effect. After all, CEO’s are not stupid.

Larry Kudlow suggested that this kind of sentence would be more effective than the legislation passed a couple of years ago.

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