WorldCom Accountant Gets Jail Time

An accountant who made some of the fraudulent entries in the books at WorldCom was sentenced Friday to five months in prison and five months of house arrest.

Betty Vinson, 49, who said she was pressured by superiors to make the false entries, had hoped to avoid prison time because she cooperated with the government in its prosecution of ex-CEO Bernard Ebbers.

Later in the day, a second former accounting official who testified against Ebbers, Troy Normand, was sentenced to three years probation.

The sentence of probation came after prosecutor David Anders told the judge that Normand was "at the very bottom" of the six people who have been convicted or pleaded guilty in the WorldCom scandal.

Anders said that while Vinson put "her own independent thought" into how to fudge the numbers, Normand's role was simply to see that the books and records of the company had been changed.

Earlier in the day, U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones had said Vinson was "among the least culpable members of the conspiracy at WorldCom." Still, "had Ms. Vinson refused to do what she was asked, it's possible this conspiracy might have been nipped in the bud."

The judge did not impose a fine on either.

Ebbers was sentenced last month to 25 years in prison for his role in the $11 billion fraud — the toughest sentence yet in the Enron-era wave of corporate scandals. The fraud plunged WorldCom into bankruptcy in 2002. It has since emerged under the name MCI Inc.

Vinson, the company's former director of corporate reporting, is one of five former WorldCom executives who pleaded guilty to fraud and face sentencing over the next week.

"I never expected to be here," she told the judge, "and I certainly won't do anything like this again."

Vinson sat calmly throughout the hearing, and stayed in the courtroom for 15 minutes afterward, chatting quietly with her lawyer and with Normand. She was ordered to report to prison Nov. 7.

At Ebbers' trial, Vinson said she was told to make improper accounting entries because Ebbers did not want to disappoint Wall Street.

"I felt like if I didn't make the entries, I wouldn't be working there," Vinson testified. She said she even drafted a resignation letter in 2000 but stayed with the company.

She said she took her concerns to Scott Sullivan, WorldCom's finance chief at the time, who told her Ebbers did not want to lower Wall Street expectations.

Asked how she chose which accounts to alter, Vinson testified, "I just really pulled some out of the air. I used some spreadsheets."

Vinson pleaded guilty to fraud in October 2002.

Her lawyer, Joe Hollomon of Jackson, Miss., had urged the judge to sentence Vinson to probation, citing the pressure placed on her by Ebbers and Sullivan.

"She expressed her concern about what she was being directed to do to upper management, and to Scott Sullivan and Bernie Ebbers, who assured her and lulled her into believing that all was well," he said.

Hollomon said he did not expect to appeal.

Vinson, who is married and has a teenage daughter, said at the trial that she was living in Madison, Miss., and working as a controller for a food service company. She did not speak to reporters Friday.

Sullivan and Ebbers have each agreed to forfeit huge sums as part of a civil settlement related to the fraud. Ebbers will turn over his mansion in Mississippi. Sullivan, who is scheduled to be sentenced next Thursday, will forfeit the $11 million home he is building in Boca Raton, Fla.