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Ebbers to Pay for Damaging Thousands of Lives
Former WorldCom boss Bernard Ebbers was sentenced to 25 years in prison by a U.S. District Court judge on July 13 for overseeing the $11 billion fraud that ultimately destroyed his company.
It was the harshest sentence yet for a CEO charged with fraudulent behavior, yet WorldCom's crimes probably involved more victims than any other case of corporate misconduct in history.
Testifying before a congressional committee in 2003, CWA President Morton Bahr challenged the bankruptcy settlement that allowed the company to re-emerge as MCI, pointing out that "MCI/WorldCom's lies and false financial reports destabilized the entire telecommunications industry. Tens of thousands of employees - not only at WorldCom, but throughout the telecom sector - lost their jobs and retirement savings," Bahr told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
He presented 27 pages of documents at that time showing how more than 172,000 workers at AT&T, Verizon and other companies lost their jobs as a result of downsizing intended to allow those companies to compete with WorldCom's projected investment in infrastructure - investment that company did not have the money to make.
It was the harshest sentence yet for a CEO charged with fraudulent behavior, yet WorldCom's crimes probably involved more victims than any other case of corporate misconduct in history.
Testifying before a congressional committee in 2003, CWA President Morton Bahr challenged the bankruptcy settlement that allowed the company to re-emerge as MCI, pointing out that "MCI/WorldCom's lies and false financial reports destabilized the entire telecommunications industry. Tens of thousands of employees - not only at WorldCom, but throughout the telecom sector - lost their jobs and retirement savings," Bahr told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
He presented 27 pages of documents at that time showing how more than 172,000 workers at AT&T, Verizon and other companies lost their jobs as a result of downsizing intended to allow those companies to compete with WorldCom's projected investment in infrastructure - investment that company did not have the money to make.