Former WorldCom accountant: 5 months in prison, 5 months house arrest

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

Ex-WorldCom official sentenced to prison
Betty Vinson sentenced to five months in prison plus five months house arrest for fraud.
August 5, 2005: 12:01 PM EDT

http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/news/newsmakers/worldcom/index.htm?cnn=yes

NEW YORK (CNN) - Former WorldCom accountant Betty Vinson was sentenced Friday morning to five months in prison and five months house arrest for her part in WorldCom's $11 billion accounting fraud.

Vinson, 49, pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy. She testified at the trial of former WorldCom Chief Executive Bernard Ebbers, describing bogus accounting designed to help the company meet its profit expectations.

On July 13, Ebbers was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his role in orchestrating the biggest corporate fraud in the nation's history.

Vinson was the first of five former WorldCom officials -- who all cooperated with prosecutors probing financial wrongdoing at the company -- who face sentencing over the next week.

[SteppingRazor]

1. About what I expected...

She did cop a plea, after all.

[gratuitous]

2. That will teach her not to steal $11 billion

But I hope that this rather lenient sentence encourages other accountants who have the goods on the financial skullduggery of other large corporations to come forward and finger the latter day robber barons who are stealing America blind.

[wiggs]

3. I lost a significant chunk with Worldcom

Took Solomon Smith Barney advice to BUY...of course Solomon Smith Barney was the accountant in charge of auditing Worldcom at the time, so I figured they should know if Worldcom was in good shape or not. It is gratifying that they are finally held accountable.

I wish someone with a platform would talk about how we have punished Ebbers and Grubman and Vinson for deception and profit and that we have the political version of them in the white house doing much more damage.

We expect greed to get out of control sometimes with corporations and that's why we watch. We haven't anticipated that our elected leaders would behave in the same way....that makes it all the more insidious.